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Children suffocate in China school-bus crash in Jiangsu School bus crash in China's Jiangsu province kills 15
(about 3 hours later)
By Michael Bristow BBC News, Beijing Fifteen children have been killed in China after their school bus veered off a road into an irrigation ditch.
Fifteen children have died in a school bus crash in China - just one day after the government issued strict guidelines to prevent such accidents. Many of the children drowned as ditch water gushed into the overturned bus in eastern Jiangsu province, officials said.
The children were killed when their bus drove into a ditch as it tried to avoid a motorised rickshaw in Jiangsu province. The tragedy comes amid a national outcry over recent similar incidents.
Officials said some children drowned and others suffocated to death. Only on Sunday, the government issued draft measures to guarantee children's safety, including compulsory checks on buses and their drivers.
This accident comes weeks after an overloaded minibus crashed, killing 19 kindergarten children. Monday's accident happened as the 29 children were being driven home from school along a rural road in Feng county.
This latest accident happened late on Monday on a country road in Feng county. The bus driver - who officials say has now been taken into custody - had apparently swerved to avoid a motorised rickshaw.
The bus, operated by a local primary school, was taking children home. Nearby factory workers heard cries and rushed to help the children, many of whom were trapped at the bottom of the overturned bus.
The ditch it drove into was filled with about 60cm of water, according to a micro-blog posting by the local public security bureau. "The water was not very deep, probably more than a metre (yard) or so - up to an adult's waist - but it was deep enough to drown some of the children," Zhang, the wife of the factory owner, told the Associated Press.
"Water got into the bus and, because the pupils were pressing down on each other, some of them drowned. Others suffocated," said the posting. "We tried so hard and cracked open one of the windows and started to pull the kids out. It was freezing cold."
It added that the driver is now in detention. She said the children ranged in age from six to 14. Eight of the children were injured.
Officials were keen to stress that the bus was not overloaded at the time of the accident. It could carry 52, but apparently had just 29 on board when the crash happened. 'Overcrowded'
These officials perhaps want to draw a distinction between this crash and the one last month in Gansu province that killed 19. Officials have said the bus could carry 52 people so was not overloaded at the time of the accident.
On that occasion, more than 60 youngsters had been crammed into a minibus that originally had just nine seats. They have been keen to draw a distinction between a crash in Gansu province last month in which 19 kindergarten children died, the BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing reports.
It led to an outcry of public anger. On that occasion, more than 60 youngsters were crammed into a minibus that originally had just nine seats.
But questions are already being asked about this latest accident, particularly in internet chat-rooms and on micro-blog sites. Officials will, nevertheless, face tough questions about this latest accident involving a school bus, our correspondent adds.
"School buses simply cannot be trusted at all," read one posting. Monday also saw another crash involving a school bus, this time in southern Guangdong province. Some 37 pupils were injured after the bus carrying 59 children was hit by a heavy-duty truck, Xinhua news agency reports.
The day before this crash, the central government issued draft guidelines to guarantee children's safety. Correspondents say school buses are often overloaded in China, and children are increasingly being forced to travel further as schools close in rural areas hit by migration to the cities.
They call for compulsory checks on buses and their drivers.