Eleven dead as school bus hits students in eastern China

HONG KONG: Eleven people were killed in China's eastern Shandong province on Tuesday after a school bus lost control at a busy pedestrian junction, broadcaster CCTV reported, with disturbing footage showing bodies lying on the road and trapped under the vehicle.

Six parents and five children were killed in the incident while one remained in critical condition. More than two dozen were injured, CCTV said.

State news agency, Xinhua reported that the students were waiting outside of their school in Tai’an city in Shandong when the bus slammed into them.

Dongping Police Department said in a statement on WeChat that the vehicle picking up students lost control at a junction in Dongping County, Shandong on Tuesday morning. The accident is under investigation, it added.

Numerous such incidents have been reported in the country recently including stabbing events targeting children in schools as well as school buses accidents.

This year in March, a car crashed into several people in Dezhou, a city in Shangdong. The careening car killed two people and significantly injured six people, as per state media reports.

In the same month, another school bus suffered an accident when it collided with a dump truck in Nantong in the province of Jiangsu. The collision killed one person and eight others were injured, as per CNN. 

In 2023, a stabbing incident killed six and injured one outside a kindergarten during early morning hours.

A similar stabbing occurred in 2022 in the eastern Jiangxi province of China outside a kindergarten, killing three and injuring six. 

— Additional input from Reuters