Beijing, June 27 (IANS) A top traffic official was sacked and three senior officials were suspended after an overloaded bus plunged into a ravine in China, killing 11 and injuring 31 passengers, authorities said Sunday.
Forty-two people on board the 19-seat bus were on their way to a funeral when the bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a ravine at 7.43 a.m. Saturday at Haiyuan County in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Yang Sendong was fired as the county’s top transportation regulator, while Yang’s colleague Ma Jianlin as well as county traffic policemen Jin Wu and Chen Xuping were suspended pending an investigation, Xinhua quoted a spokesman as saying.
Thirteen seriously injured passengers were in a critical condition while the condition of the 18 others was stable, said Huang Luning, head of the county’s People’s Hospital.
Among the injured, the youngest was seven months old and the oldest 77-years-old, Huang said.
The bus belonged to the privately-run Limin Public Transport Co. in Haiyuan.
