AT least 30 people were injured when a coach overturned in Xiangzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Monday.
Most of the injured had been discharged from hospital by Wednesday night but one remained in a critical condition, Thursday s Shenzhen Evening News reported.
Some of the injured, mostly learner drivers from two driving schools in Shenzhen, returned to Shenzhen on Thursday. They were planning to claim compensation from the schools, one of the injured passengers, identified as Gou, said Wednesday.
One of the schools, Shenzhen Yuegang Driving School, and the bus owner, China International Travel Service Ltd. (Shenzhen), said they did not know about the accident and would look into the matter. The other school, Shenzhen Yinhu Driving School, and the driver of the coach could not be contacted.
The coach was carrying 36 learner drivers for tests in Guangxi when the accident occurred at about 4 a.m. on a mountain road in Xiangzhou. Everyone was sleeping when the coach overturned. I was terrified, said one unidentified passenger.
However, both schools denied sending any learners to take tests in Guangxi.
An unidentified industry insider told the newspaper that some driving schools helped learners take driving tests in other cities and then helped transfer their licenses to Shenzhen, because the Shenzhen test was too difficult. Although the practice was banned in Shenzhen, some schools secretly enrolled learners, he said.
In a separate incident, a long-distance coach traveling from Shenzhen to Jiangxi Province plunged into a ravine on the Yuegan Expressway on Tuesday morning. One passenger was killed and two were seriously injured.
It was raining and the driver swerved to avoid another vehicle, plunging the coach into a 5-meter ravine, a Shenzhen Municipal Transport Commission official said.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
