18 killed as double-decker bus topples over in Hong Kong

A double-decker bus crashed in a Hong Kong suburb on Saturday evening, killing 18 people and injuring dozens more, authorities in the southern Chinese city said.

Local media reports said the bus tipped over, and quoted passengers as saying the bus was full and travelling very fast.

The death toll included 15 men and three women, a police spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Another 47 people were injured and taken to hospitals, including 19 in serious condition, the Hospital Authority said.

Photos and videos published by local media or posted by users on social media showed the gold-coloured bus lying on its side while emergency workers treat injured passengers nearby.

Local TV channels broadcast footage of rescue workers cutting open the roof of the bus, operated by the Kowloon Motor Bus Co., and bodies of dead passengers laid out on the ground, covered in white sheets.

Multiple passengers interviewed by the TVB and Cable TV news channels said the bus was moving at a high rate of speed when the accident happened. The passengers were not identified by name.

Deadly accidents are rare on the southern Chinese city’s public transport system, which it promotes as one of the best infrastructures in the world.

The city’s worst road traffic accident occurred in 2003 when a double-decker bus collided with a truck and plunged from a bridge, killing 21 people.

In 2008, 18 people were killed in another bus crash.

The safety of Hong Kong’s waterways has also remained under scrutiny since 39 people were killed when a high-speed ferry and a pleasure boat crashed in 2012.