Chai! Big Bus Bursts into Flames Killing all 26 Passengers on Board (Photo)

The bus went up in flames

 

The tour bus carrying visitors from China burst into flames on a highway near Taiwan's capital. The event occurred on Tuesday.

 

All 26 people on board were killed, officials said.

 

The event has been described as the deadliest incident involving Chinese tourism to the island.

 

According to ABC News, the accident took place on the No. 2 national highway in Taoyuan county, south of Taipei, where Taiwan's international airport is located, the county's fire and rescue service said in a statement.

 

It said 24 of those on board were visitors from northeast China's Liaoning province who had been scheduled to fly home on Tuesday afternoon. The others killed were the driver and a tour guide, both Taiwanese.

 

Taoyuan fire chief Lai Chi-chong said all of the victims died inside the bus. "There was not enough time for them to escape," he told reporters.

 

Video from the scene showed both of the bus's doors pressed up against the highway's guard rail, making them impossible to open. Photos showed flames and thick black smoke pouring from the front of the bus.

 

Many of the bodies were badly charred, some of them piled in front of the unopened emergency exit, Taiwan's official Central News Agency and other media reported.

 

There was no official word on the cause of the fire, although CNA and others said that the bus apparently burst into flames after spinning out of control and smashing into the guard rail.

 

CNA cited eyewitnesses as saying the bus had been giving off smoke and swerving from lane to lane prior to crashing and bursting into flames.

 

The drivers of other vehicles pulled over and attempted to put out the flames with fire extinguishers, but the fire had grown too large for them to put out, the news agency said.

 

Thirteen firefighting vehicles and 30 firefighters were sent to the scene, but the fire apparently spread too rapidly. By the time the flames were extinguished, the vehicle had been heavily blackened from one end to the other.

 

Three of the victims were children — two 13-year-olds and a 12-year-old, according to a passenger manifest distributed to media by the Taiwanese travel agency that organized the trip.