Twenty-eight deaths in two traffic accidents in Guangdong Province on Sunday have been put down to speeding, fog and overloading.

Twenty-four people were killed when 13 vehicles collided at the Jiangmen section of the Kaiping-Yangjiang Expressway in western Guangdong, in south China.

Another 30 were injured, nine seriously, in the accident which happened at about 7 pm.

In the other accident, four people were killed and 38 were injured in a 30-vehicle pile-up at the Shanwei section of the Shenzhen-Shantou Expressway in eastern Guangdong in the early hours.

Cars, vans, minibuses, coaches, oil-tankers, trucks and containers were involved in the smash, which is considered to be the most serious accident ever to have happened there.

All victims of the evening crash were taken to local hospitals in Jiangmen.

Most of the victims were local residents who were going home for the coming lunar New Year, which falls on February 9.

The Jiangmen city government sent a special task force to help rescue the wounded, investigate the cause of the accident and handle the aftermath.

Zhang Dejiang, Party secretary of Guangdong Province, and Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua are urging departments to do what they can to help.

Zhang and Huang have also called for more attention to safe highway transport, particularly during the traditional Spring Festival rush period that starts from today and lasts for more than a month.

A special medical rescue team, headed by Xu Shangwu, deputy secretary-general of Guangdong provincial government, also arrived in Jiangmen to help the rescue work yesterday.

Wang Chunyang, an official from the Traffic Police Department under the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, said speeding drivers and foggy weather were initially thought to be the main causes of the accident.

Investigations were ongoing, Wang said.

The morning crash is thought to have been caused by poor ground visibility and fog.

Last year, 10,261 people were killed in traffic accidents in Guangdong, a reduction of 890, or 8 per cent, over the 2003 figure.

Another 63,417 were injured in traffic accidents in the previous year. Economic losses caused by traffic accidents were estimated at more than 230 million yuan (US$27.8 million) in 2004.

The province reported 55,082 highway traffic accidents in 2004, down 20.1 per cent from the previous year.

(China Daily January 25, 2005)