Bus hits road workers and plunges off cliff in China, killing 17

Seventeen people were killed and at least seven others were injured when a bus hit several road workers and then plunged off a cliff in southwestern China, state media reported Friday.

Photo: Bus hits road workers and plunges off cliff in China, killing 17

Xinhua News Agency said the accident in Yunnan province in southwestern China occurred when a bus carrying 21 people hit three road workers and then fell 90 meters (100 yards) down a cliff.

Fourteen of the passengers and one of the road workers were killed immediately, while two others died on the way to a hospital, it said.

Xinhua had no other details of the accident, which happened in a mountainous area 200 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of the provincial capital.

Bus accidents in China are common because of bad roads and poorly maintained vehicles. In an earlier accident on Thursday, also in Yunnan, a tour bus carrying 19 Japanese tourists veered off a road bend, killing a Japanese tourist, the AP said.

"A 78-year-old female Japanese died on the way to hospital and 12 other Japanese were injured, one seriously," Xinhua quoted He Wenping, an official with the Dali government, as saying.

The Japanese tourists were on their way to Lijiang from Dali, two famous scenic spots in Yunnan, when the accident happened, Xinhua said.