Flammable, explosive materials carried by passenger set off bus fire that killed 26: Police

Flammable and explosive materials illegally carried by a passenger caused a coach bus fire that killed 26 and injured 28 in Central China's Hunan province on March 22, local police said Saturday.

At 7:12 pm that day, the bus, with 56 passengers, caught fire on a highway in Hunan. The fire was accidentally triggered by the flammables carried by the passenger, who was killed in the fire, the Hunan provincial Public Security Department said in a statement.

Chen Jiansen, 51, from Xinmi, Central China's Henan province, took highly flammable materials on board the coach, which was headed from Kaifeng, Henan, to Guilin, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, according to the statement.

He was going to negotiate a business dispute with a seller in Guilin face to face after a phone consultation failed. If the negotiation had no result, he planned to use the flammables to threaten the seller and seek revenge, the statement said.

After the accident, a working group led by an official from the Ministry of Public Security and more than 20 criminal technical experts were sent to Hunan to guide the investigation and cleanup and disposal work.

At present, the work of dealing with the aftermath of the accident, the treatment of the injured and the comfort of their families is proceeding in an orderly manner, the statement added.