Fifty-four people, including 52 minors, were injured in a pileup on Guangzhou-Foshan freeway Thursday afternoon, said local sources.

According to the sources, a microbus collided with a car around2 p.m. Thursday at one exit of the expressway near Shayong. Shortly afterwards, two other buses with primary school students aboard came from the direction of Guangzhou, the provincial capital. As they attempted to avoid the two vehicles parked at the site of the previous collision, one of the bus ran into the back of the preceding car.

The injured are 52 pupils from Jiangmen City, also in Guangdong Province, and one driver, and one tour guide. By press time, no death has been reported in the highway pileup.

Because of the pileup, traffic on the freeway was forced to a halt for three hours but was resumed at 5 p.m. on Thursday.

Cause of the traffic accident is under investigation.

While Thursday night in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, eight persons were injured, including two Taiwan reporters, and one Fujian driver was killed in a road accident

The deceased was from east China's Fujian Province. Ho Wen-han, a cameramen with Taiwan-based Era TV, suffered high paraplegia. Julia Jin, also from Era TV, was diagnosed with soft tissue contusion. Li Jun, a CCTV reporter, suffered humerus comminuted fracture.

The rest injured are staffers with the group of journalists from both sides of the Taiwan Strait in their journey across China by means of auto rally.

All injured have been hospitalized.

The accident occurred at 10:10 p.m. Thursday when one of the one vehicle bumped into a pile of sand and overturned on a section of No. 312 national road near Hami City of Xinjiang. Five other cross-country vehicles behind the overturned car then run into each other, partially due to fast speed.

Local police promptly organized rescue work.

Wang Lequan, secretary of the Xinjiang Regional Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, has issued an instruction to send the best doctors soon after he learned the accident. Zhang Mingqing, assistant director and spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, has arrived in Xinjiang and was on his way to the spot of the traffic accident.

The group was composed of reporters from 16 news media across the Taiwan Strait. They started the journey from east China's Fujian Province and planned to end the trip in Xinjiang from June 17 to July 12.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2004)