Powerful blasts kill at least 29 in Jiangxi
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-03-17 15:33

At least 29 people were killed when a double-decker bus collided with a truck loaded with firecrackers and explosives and exploded in eastern China's Jiangxi Province early Thurday morning.

The blasts were so powerful that they could be heard some two kilometers away, Xinhua and local media reported.

According to a report by photobase, affiliated to the east China bureau of People's Daily, police have found 29 bodies at the explosion site, and no one in the bus and truck survived the explosions. Five villagers and two drivers near the site were injured and are treated in a local hospital, and about 60 houses nearby were also damaged.

The blasts occurred at about 4:05am on Thursday in Shangrao, a city in Jiangxi Province when the long-distance bus, traveling from southern Shenzhen city to eastern Zhejiang province, collided with a truck loaded firecrackers and explosives that was travelling from central China's Hunan Province to Zhejiang.

Police initially thought the double-decker bus caused the explosion.

The bus and truck were exploded into pieces, so were the people on the bus and truck. It is reported that body parts were even found some 50 meters away from the site.

The windows and doors of houses about one kilometer away were shattered in the explosions. 

An ealier Xinhua report said the exact number of death toll is hard to tell now, as victims were exploded into pieces, adding that the toll was estimated on the bus's 30-person seating capacity.

Seven hundred police and armed police have rushed to the scene and closed the highway for investigation.

Further investigation is underway.

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