A bus with a dozen passengers onboard suddenly veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided into a private car before plunging into the Yangtze River in Chongqing on Sunday, local police said.<\/p>\n
Police said more than 10 people, including the driver, were on the bus when it broke through road fencing and drove off a bridge at 10:08 a.m. in Chongqing’s Wanzhou District.<\/p>\n
Two bodies had been retrieved from the river as of 8 p.m. and the rescue work is still ongoing. Over 20 rescue boats have arrived to carry out salvage operations.<\/p>\n
According to a preliminary investigation, the bus crossed over the line marking the center of the bridge and crashed into the car that was driving normally on the other side.<\/p>\n
The private car driver is being treated in hospital and is under police watch.<\/p>\n
The bridge, named Second Yangtze River Bridge of Wanzhou, is a two-way, four-lane bridge with an overall width of 20 meters. Xinhua reporters saw the fence breach is at the middle of the bridge.<\/p>\n
A police officer on duty said the sinking spot of the bus happened to be the deepest area in the river.<\/p>\n
Based on on-site technical analysis, rescuers located the sinking area of the bus and estimated that the bus sank about 68 meters under water. Several frogmen stood ready to dive.<\/p>\n
However, due to complex underwater situations, an underwater robot equipped with high-definition cameras was forced to return to surface after diving about 30 meters at evening time.<\/p>\n
Ministries of emergency management, public security and transport have dispatched working teams to oversee the rescue work. A rescue force consisted of people from departments including maritime affairs, fire control, armed police and Yangtze River shipping management has been set up at the scene.<\/p>\n
While the identities of the two bodies are being verified, the city government has organized community workers to interview neighborhoods to find out identities of possible victims.<\/p>\n
The bus was No. 22 from Jiangnan New District of Wanzhou to Beibin Road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bus with a dozen passengers onboard suddenly veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided into a private car before plunging into the Yangtze River in Chongqing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"yoast_head":"\n