By Xinhua
Guiyang (China) : At least 21 people have been killed and 14 injured after a passenger bus veered off the highway and fell into a river in the country’s mountainous Guizhou Province, the authorities said.
The accident occurred at around 2.30 p.m. Tuesday, when the bus, on the way from Chishui to Zunyi, veered off the highway and fell into a river from a 50-metre-high cliff. There were 33 people aboard the bus when it left Chishui.
The authorities said the search and rescue work ended Wednesday morning after two more bodies were recovered from the Chishui River, on the border of Guizhou and Sichuan provinces.
The injured people were being treated at People’s Hospital in Guizhou’s Renhuai City, according to officials. The survivors said the bus was moving at high speed at the time of the accident.
The cause of the accident is still not clear. Guizhou has been one of the provinces hit by snow that began in mid-January. Many roads have been closed and power lines destroyed in the region.