Bus plunges into river from height of 100m, 21 people die

According to Xinhua News Agency, 21 people were killed and three others injured in a car accident that occurred on April 4 in the southwestern region of the country.

Accident scene. (Source: weibo.com)

A minibus carrying 24 passengers veered off a mountain road and plunged 100 meters into a shallow river in Bijie City, Guizhou Province. Initial investigations showed that the vehicle violated the law by deliberately entering a road designated for smaller vehicles.

Road traffic accidents are a serious problem in China as the highway network and the number of new drivers increase rapidly, but traffic laws and safety are often violated.

According to data from China's Ministry of Public Security, in the first 10 months of last year, more than 87,000 people died in about 420,000 traffic accidents, up 1.9 percent over the same period in 2013.

In July 2014, a serious traffic accident occurred when a truck carrying flammable liquids crashed into a passenger bus on a highway in the central region, killing 43 people. Just a month later, 44 people were killed when a passenger bus fell into a valley in Tibet after colliding with two other vehicles.

According to the British scientific journal The Lancet, road traffic accidents are the third leading cause of death in China, above cancer./

According to VNA