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The death toll of a road accident in southern Guangdong province Friday morning has reached 32 as six more corpses were retrieved from the waters of the Dongjiang river in the province on Sunday night.
The road accident occurred when a high-speeding, overloaded bus traveling along a narrow bend on a slippery road surface plunged into the river at about 7:15 a.m. Friday in Dongyuan County of Heyuan City, in northeastern part of Guangdong.
The 31-seat bus was claimed to have carried 40 passengers the time of the accident, but the newly retrieved bodies have added the number to at least 46, because 14 others, including the driver, had managed to escaped or been rescued earlier.
According to a local police source, the accident could be attributed to the overcrowdeness in the bus, slick road surface, alack of protection facilities, incomplete warning signals and relevant marks at roadsides as well as the driving speed of 70 km per hour.
Rescuing and salvage work for the severest traffic accident of the year in Guangdong is still underway, said Vice-Provincial Governor You Ningfeng, who also called for enhanced control on traffic security and construction of quality highway facilities.
(Xinhua News Agency June 9, 2003)
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