6 dead as van falls into valley

AN overloaded van taking 12 students home plunged into a 60-meter-deep valley in rural southwest China yesterday, killing six people and injuring eight others.

The eight-seater, loaded with 14 people, rolled into the valley from a mountainous road in the county of Guangnan, Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Prefecture in Yunnan Province at 9am. The fatalities include the driver, four students and an elderly man.

Local officials said the van was not a school bus but students in the area usually took it to commute between their homes and school. Many students in the boarding school returned home yesterday morning.

The eight injured, all students, were sent to the prefecture hospital of Wenshan, more than three hours drive from the county for treatment. Their conditions were not immediately known.

Police launched an investigation into the accident.

It is the second traffic accident involving students in Yunnan this week, amid a string of fatal school bus accidents across the country that raised national concern over school transport safety, especially in rural areas.

On Wednesday, two rural primary school students died and another 20 were injured after a horse-drawn wagon they were aboard collided with a truck in Yunnan's Qiubei county.

The government immediately banned farming vehicles, unlicensed buses and vans from transporting students in the county.

There are few schools in the vast and sparsely populated rural areas. School buses are themselves relatively new as children in years past would typically hike rugged roads to attend school.