13 die as woman hits driver, causes bus to plunge inside river in China
At least thirteen passengers have died after a careless scuffle between a woman and the driver of a bus in China.
The woman, police authorities say, had gone up to the driver and asked to be let out after missing her stop.
She then began to hit him with an object after they had both exchanged abuses over his refusal to stop. The driver lost control of the bus during the scuffle.
In a shocking video reviewed by authorities, the driver suddenly steers the wheel hard to the left and the bus veers onto incoming traffic, striking a car before breaking through the rails of the bridge crossing the Yangtze River, in the southwest city of Chongqing.
The bus, carrying 15 passengers, plunged into the river. Police said on Friday that 13 bodies have been recovered since the incident on Sunday.
Search and rescue teams dispatched more than 70 boats, as well as a team of scuba divers and underwater robots, to find the wreckage and retrieve bodies from the water.
“Fifteen lives were lost in an instant — the lessons from this are very painful,” police said.
AFP reports that deadly road accidents are common in China, with volations of traffic laws causing nearly 90 per cent of accidents that claimed about 58,000 lives in 2015.
