Deadly road. A gigantic hole formed on a road to a major city in China has engulfed a bus full of passengers, an official media reported on Tuesday (January 14th). Authorities have reported six dead and four missing.
The asphalt on a busy street in northwest China's Qinghai capital, Xining, failed on Monday, half swallowing the vehicle and causing an explosion, public television CCTV said.
A video published by the China News Service news agency shows panicked passers-by deviating from the cavity that formed in front of a bus stop, and the bus practically vertical in the hole.
A similar accident has already occurred in China in 2016
Rescue operations are continuing and an investigation is underway to determine the origin of the accident, CCTV said, adding that 16 people, injured, were "in stable condition".
Photos released by the official China News Agency show the rescue operation, with backhoes in action and a construction crane extracting the bus from the hole, which formed in front of a hospital.
It is not the first such accident in China. In 2016, several passers-by fell into a hole that suddenly opened in a street in downtown Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. An investigation by firefighters had indicated that this collapse could have been caused by pipes buried under the road, and which would have yielded under the pressure of rainwater.
In 2013, five people died when a 10-meter deep cavity suddenly opened at the gates of an industrial district in Shenzhen, in the south.
With AFP
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