Suspect held after 17 die in bus fire
Print Edition
A MAN suspected of setting fire to a bus in which 17 people died — eight men and nine women — is in police custody after threatening to jump from a building in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The No. 301 bus, with more than 40 people on board, was on its way to Yinchuan Railway Station when it caught fire shortly after 7am yesterday.
Six of the injured are in a serious condition, including one who is critical, Xinhua news agency said, citing Jia Shaobing, deputy president of Ningxia Medical University General Hospital where all 32 are being treated.
The others, including the bus driver, a 40-year-old man who is helping police with their enquiries, suffered moderate to slight burns. The 16 men and 16 women who are being treated at the hospital range in ages from 20 to 65.
One woman suffered burns to 99 percent of her body, the Beijing Times reported.
According to China Central Television, a police chase ended in a four-hour standoff as Ma Yongping, 33, from Shizuishan City in Ningxia, threatened to jump to his death from a tower block being built in the city.
Ma is a construction project contractor who had debt dispute with sub-contractors, police said. On December 7, he had posted a picture online showing him standing on a high-rise, with the caption: “If I were a torch, I would burn myself. Goodbye Yinchuan, please forgive me for not able to build you any longer.”
Pictures and videos posted yesterday showed the bus engulfed in flames.
“I was sitting at the front of the bus when suddenly people started screaming ‘Fire! Bus on Fire!’,” Hu Yuexiang, a 26-year-old man, told Xinhua. “When I turned around, the flames were racing toward me very quickly and before I knew it my shoes were on fire.”
Hu said passengers rushed to the front door, pleading with the driver to open it.
Bus ‘turned into a skeleton’
“I thought the bus was about to explode, and I was going to die,” Hu was quoted as saying. “Then the door opened and we all rushed out.”
Hu said he wanted to film the fire, but the bus quickly “turned into a skeleton.”
Wang Yongfeng, who suffered minor burns to his hands, said: “When I boarded the bus, all the seats were taken, and lots of people were standing.”
A passenger on another bus passing the scene at the time told The Beijing News: “I saw three to four male passengers escape the fire. One of them caught fire. He rolled on the ground to put out the fire and one of his shoes was severely burned.”
The bus belongs to state-owned Yinchuan Public Transport Co Ltd. The company has begun a safety check of all its vehicles following the incident.
In 2013, a man started a fire on a vehicle in Xiamen in the eastern province of Fujian that killed 47 people including himself. Police concluded he was suicidal and fed up with his life.
Last year, a 35-year-old man was executed for starting a fire on a bus in Hangzhou in July 2014 that injured 33 people.
A court said Bao Laixu had been seeking revenge against society and wanted to end his own life because of his tuberculosis.
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