China bus collision: Accident on Eastern Expressway kills 36 people

At least 36 people were killed when a bus collided with a truck on an expressway in eastern China, authorities said Sunday. A bus with 69 people on board crossed into the opposite lane and hit the truck on Saturday morning, the Yixing city information office said in a social media post. Initial investigation indicated a flat tire on the bus was the cause, the post said.

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bus collision leads to 45 casualties

Another 36 people were injured, including nine who were in serious conditions, the Yixing government said. Three people were riding in the truck. Yixing city lies west of Shanghai in Jiangsu province, near China’s east coast.

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4 Chinese tourists killed in Utah bus accident earlier identified

In a similar incident, four Chinese tourists were killed in a bus crash in southern Utah near a national park. The victims were reportedly in their 60s and were from Shanghai. Three women and one man died in the crash on a highway running through the red-rock landscape near Bryce Canyon National Park on Friday. The victims have been identified as Ling Geng, 68, Xiuyun Chen, 67, Zhang Caiyu, 62, and Zhongliang Qiu, 65, according to the Utah Highway Patrol.

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Authorities believe the driver swerved on the way to the park on September 20 morning. But when he yanked the steering wheel to put the bus back onto the road, the momentum sent the bus into a rollover crash, authorities said. The National Transportation Safety Board, which sent a team to investigate, was planning a media briefing Sunday evening to discuss the initial findings. The deceased was part of a group made up of 29 tourists and one leader. They come from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Heilongjiang, according to a news report on the media website huanqiu.com. The tour leader came from Hebei Province, near Beijing, according to the Zhejiang Online news site. The tour group was dispatching employees from China to help those injured. Five passengers were in critical condition as of the latest update from hospital officials Friday night.

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