China Floods Claim At Least 57 Lives, Including 2 Children

Floods in China have caused major destruction in the country, killing at least 57 people, including two schoolchildren, authorities said Saturday, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

At least six people were killed Saturday in China’s south-central Hunan province after a bus, carrying over 50 people, collided with a road barrier. China Radio International reported that rains in the region had made the conditions unsafe for the bus.

The passenger bus was carrying employees of a local company to Langshan Mountain in Xinning. While four people died at the scene, two others died at the hospital on Saturday, according to China Radio International.

Another bus, carrying more than twice the number of authorized passengers, fell into a pond on Saturday, killing two schoolchildren. School officials were taken into custody after it was found that the bus had 26 people on board, while it was licensed to carry only 11, the AP reported.

Several road accidents have been reported in the country in the past few months due to lack of safety measures and overcrowded vehicles.

Thirteen people were reported missing due to the floods while 16 people died after a nine-story building in the city of Guiyang collapsed due to a landslide, authorities said Saturday.

Seasonal rains in China cause major flooding almost every year. In 1998, in the worst such incident in recent history, 4,150 people died in floods, most of them along the Yangtze River.