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| In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, rescuers watch as a bus that fell into a lake is recovered in the Xixiu District of Anshun, southwestern China's Guizhou Province, Tuesday, July 7, 2020. (Photo by=Long Rui/Xinhua via AP) |
[아시아뉴스통신=레악카나 기자] A Chinese bus driver upset that his home would be demolished had been drinking at the wheel before plunging his vehicle into a reservoir, killing 21 people including five students heading to their college entrance exams, police said. The bus careered into a lake in the city of Anshun in the southwest province of Guizhou last Tuesday.
The driver, surnamed Zhang, "was unhappy about his life and about the demolition of the public-owned house he rented", Anshun city police said in a statement on an official social media account Sunday. On the morning of the incident, Zhang saw that the house was about to be demolished and rang a government hotline to complain, the police statement said. But police said Zhang had signed an agreement in June authorising the demolition and had been promised more than 72,000 yuan (US$10,000) in compensation which he left unclaimed.
Zhang is suspected of deliberately "conducting 'an extreme crime'", the statement said. Zhang drowned and an autopsy found alcohol in his system. A hashtag relating to the Anshun police statement had gained over 1 billion views on Weibo by Monday morning, with many comments condemning the driver. "Why impose your own pain on so many families?" wrote one user.
