China bus crashes kills 18, injures 19

Beijing, Dec 29: Eighteen people including a Japanese were killed and 19 injured in two traffic accidents in southwest China's mountainous Yunnan province, Xinhua news agency today said.

A minibus carrying 21 passengers hit construction workers on a road in Qujing city yesterday and then plunged into a 90-metre valley, a spokesman for the city government was quoted as saying.

Sixteen passengers, including a child, and a construction worker were killed. Seven were injured, two seriously.

In the second accident, a bus carrying 19 Japanese tourists veered off a road into farmland in Heqing county yesterday.

''A 78-year-old female Japanese died on the way to hospital and 12 other Japanese were injured, one seriously,'' He Wenping, a local official, was quoted as saying.

Traffic accidents in China killed 82,000 in the first 11 months of this year.

Reuters