8 Oct 2011

More than 50 killed in series of crashes in China

9:04 pm on 8 October 2011

At least 56 people have been killed in a series of road collisions in China including 35 mainly young people travelling on a bus.

Chinese officials said the speeding bus hit a car on a motorway in northern China and rolled over throwing passengers onto the road.

The BBC reports a further 10 people died in a 24 vehicle pile-up on a fog bound motorway in eastern Anhui province.

Eleven others in central Henan province died when a truck crashed into a van.

The collisions all occurred on the last day of a week-long national holiday.

The students travelling on the bus in the port city of Tianjin on Friday were returning to school when the crash occurred. Nineteen others were injured and the driver is in a coma Chinese officials said.

Road crashes in China kill an estimated 100,000 and injure nearly half a million every year according to the UN's world health body, WHO.