Praise for a quick-thinking bus driver
Print Edition
SECONDS before a landslide struck, Huang Guiquan braked hard and slammed his bus into reverse, saving the lives of his 42 passengers.
The 59-year-old has been widely praised after a video clip of the landslide captured by a passenger went viral online.
About 11,000 cubic meters of earth descended on the highway just in front of the bus, in Ya’an of southwest China’s Sichuan Province on the evening of July 8.
In the 17-second clip, the bus stops on a highway between a river and a cliff. A few stones roll down from the cliff in front of the bus and then a massive landslide engulfs the road ahead. Terrified passengers are heard screaming and crying.
“The landslide happened within a minute of Mr Huang backing up the bus. We were only a dozen meters from disaster. We owe our lives to Huang,” said Zheng Qiang, the passenger who made the video.
Huang said: “It is important for a driver to be observant of the environment all around rather than just staring at the road ahead.”
It was raining when he decided to stop the bus after seeing some stones falling down the mountain. “Trees swayed on the mountainside, but there was no wind at that moment. I thought that it must be the mountain itself that was shaking so I backed up the bus.”
The road is high up on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and prone to snow in winter and landslides in summer.
Huang is familiar with the road conditions on all his regular routes. “I am particularly careful when driving through the sections with sharp turns, steep slopes or frequent landslides,” he said.
“It is always better to stop than rush when in danger.”
Huang admits he was scared. “I dreamed that night that we had all been buried by the landslide,” he said.
One online comment of the many that praised his actions read: “He made himself extraordinary by doing an ordinary job well.”
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