24 steel workers die in bus fire

Investigators yesterday check out the burned-out bus in which 24 people died on Sunday night. The bus carrying night shift workers erupted in flames when passing through a tunnel in the east Chinese city of Wuxi. There were a total of 45 people on the bus and 19 passengers were injured. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

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TWENTY-FOUR people were killed and 19 injured when fire engulfed a steel company shuttle bus in east China's Jiangsu Province late Sunday night.

All the passengers on the shuttle bus were night shift workers of the private-run Xuefeng Steel Company in Wuxi City.

Three of the injured workers were surfering with burns over at least 50 percent of their skin, Xinhua news agency reported.

Doctors at Wuxi No. 3 Hospital said cures were possible for them but it would take five days to see if they will survive.

The cause of the fire has not been determined and police investigation is still going on, Xinhua said.

The accident took place in a highway tunnel, which was sealed off after the blaze. Half of the lanes were reopened yesterday.

The steel plant was shut down temporarily after the tragedy. China News Service quoted an unnamed insider as saying the plant stopped production in order to avoid panic among its workers.

There were more than 400 workers at the plant and almost all of them commute by the company's shuttle bus every day.

China National Radio said local authorities have notified all family members of the victims and brought them to an undisclosed place. The families of the victims said they were not satisfied because the factory kept them in the dark about the victims' conditions.

Xuefeng said yesterday it will stop the shuttle bus service and let the city's public transport authority take over the transportation of its employees.

Last June in southwest China's Chengdu City, 28 people died and 74 were injured when a worker ignited a can of petrol on a bus that had sealed windows and doors.

The man who started the fire, Zhang Yunliang, died in the fire.

The Chengdu tragedy prompted Shanghai's public transport authority to add escape windows on buses.

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