68 killed, 100 injured in accidents, forest fire in China

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- dEsPeraTe cRaNky -
At least 68 people were killed and over 100 injured today in a train accident, two major road mishaps and a forest fire in China.

Nineteen passengers were killed and 71 others were injured when a passenger train from Shanghai to the scenic city of Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region derailed after ramming into landslides in Jiangxi Province.

The condition of the 11 injured passengers was stated to be serious, Xinhua newsagency reported.

A spokesman of the Railway headquarters said 8,000 cubic meters of mud and rocks from the landslide were removed from the tracks, after 2,000 rescuers using heavy machinery completed the rescue operation. Several compartments of the train became a twisted mettle crushing many passengers.

The engine along with eight of the 17 carriages of the train derailed and some even overturned in the mountainous area. One carriage was twisted and crushed on the other.

"Each of the train carriages has 118 seats. It is not yet immediately known how many passengers were on board," said a police officer surnamed Luo.

Meanwhile, 32 people were killed after a bus and truck collided on an expressway in Fuxin City, northeast China's Liaoning Province. Three people on the truck and 28 passengers on the bus were killed on the spot. One of the 22 injured died in hospital.

A spokesman with the Liaoning Public Security Bureau said the accident happened in the early hours when the truck turned the wrong way coming out of a service area. The two vehicles collided head on and caught fire.

The coach, with 53 people on board was en route from Tianjin to Harbin, capital of the northeastern Heilongjiang Province.

Meanwhile, another 12 people were killed in forest fire in in south western China after they volunteered to douse it. The victims were the villagers from Yunnan province who joined to help the authorities to fight a fire that broke out last afternoon, Xinhua news agency reported.

In yet another road accident, five people were killed after a bus rammed into the road side barrier and veered off an expressway in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

The bus was carrying 47 people and heading to Chongqing rom Kaixian County, when the accident happened in the early hours, said Chongqing police.

Six injured people have been rushed to Dianjiang County People's Hospital. None of them was in critical condition, said the police.
 
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