Bus accident kills 25 in China's Xinjiang
Posted: 13 August 2008 1649 hrs

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BEIJING: Twenty-five people, mostly youths, died when a bus overturned in China's northwest Xinjiang region, state media said on Wednesday.

Seventeen people died at the scene of Tuesday's accident, while eight others later succumbed to their injuries in an area hospital, Xinhua news agency reported.

The five remaining people on the bus were receiving medical treatment.

The bus overturned on a remote mountain road leading to Artux city. Many of the passengers were high school students from Han Chinese families as well as the Kirgiz ethnic minority, Xinhua said.

More than 30 people have died in Xinjiang this month as a result of attacks apparently timed to coincide with the Beijing Olympics and blamed by China on Muslim terrorists from the region.

The incident was an accident, said a spokeswoman for the government in the Kirgiz region, where the bus overturned.

"The mountain road is very dangerous," she told AFP. "The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but it is not linked to any terrorist act."


- AFP/so