11 children killed in packed minivan
Print Edition
ELEVEN kindergarten children died when their overloaded minivan was crushed under a truck loaded with sand after the two vehicles collided in Penglai City in east China’s Shandong Province yesterday.
The woman driver was also killed.
Three of the children died at the scene while eight others who were still alive when rescuers pulled them from the wreckage succumbed soon after, Xinhua news agency reported.
Three children who survived the crash suffered slight injuries.
Penglai police told The Beijing News last night that they had detained the kindergarten operator, the minivan owner, and the truck driver.
They said the eight-seater minivan was carrying 14 children when the accident happened around 8am yesterday on the Sicun Airport link road in Chaoshui Town.
Photographs of the incident showed the silver minivan half buried in sand with the roof badly dented and one of its doors ripped off.
Police didn’t say how the truck and the minivan had come to hit each other but a witnesses said the truck had rolled over to one side and crushed the other vehicle underneath it.
According to The Beijing News, the preschool, nearly 10 years old, employs more than 30 staffers.
Overloading is the major cause of school bus accidents in China.
In the latest such incident, a kindergarten minibus plunged into a pond in central China’s Hunan Province in July, killing eight children, two teachers and the driver.
In 2011, a nationwide outcry erupted over the deaths of 18 nursery school children after a coal truck slammed into their overcrowded school van in northwestern China, prompting then-Premier Wen Jiabao to promise more government funds for schoolbus services.
The following year, the State Council issued the School Bus Safety Management Regulations.
Under the regulations, drivers who refuse to give way to school buses face 200 yuan (US$33) fines, and people involved in unlicensed school bus services could face criminal charges.
Anyone transporting students in substandard buses faces a fine of 2,000 to 5,000 yuan, losing their license, and having the vehicle seized. Owners face fines up to 100,000 yuan.
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