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March 14, 2014

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Tanker crash in tunnel killed 31

THE death toll from a highway accident inside a tunnel earlier this month was revealed yesterday to be 31 — almost double the figure given earlier.

The city government of Jincheng, in the north Shanxi Province, said a team assembled by the State Council to investigate the crash and explosion met yesterday in the city to give a briefing on the latest developments.

In addition to the 31 known fatalities, it said nine people were still missing.

The accident on March 1 involved more than 40 vehicles, including some carrying hazardous materials, and resulted in a fire that burned for three days.

Xinhua news agency said two tankers loaded with the flammable methanol collided inside the Yanhou Tunnel on a highway in Shanxi, causing a blast and setting alight coal trucks in the tunnel.

A March 5 report by Xinhua said 13 people were dead, another 11 injured, and 42 vehicles destroyed in the blaze that burned 1,500 tons of coal over 73 hours.

A recent update put the death toll at 16.

Xinhua said it had been extremely challenging to identify victims, because many bodies were carbonized in the blaze.

The official microblog by a local highway battalion made no mention of the crash but on March 5 posted a notice by the provincial government banning hazardous chemicals from all highways there for one year.


 

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