Police have arrested a man who drove a truck loaded with Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims that overturned in southwestern China, killing 54 and injuring another 41, the government said.
Genya Rongbu, a 26-year-old Tibetan from Sichuan province, was arrested on charges of improperly operating the vehicle, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
A preliminary investigation found that his license was expired and that the truck, which wasn’t supposed to carry any passengers, was overloaded, Xinhua said Tuesday.
The vehicle had been loaded with 104 passengers when the accident occurred around noon on Monday. It had been traveling through the Qinghai region while making its way back from Tibet’s capital Lhasa, Xinhua said.
Some 28 people were hospitalized for serious injuries, it said.
Most of the passengers were from Ganzi and Aba, ethnic Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Xinhua said. It said they had been on a pilgrimage to Lhasa, the traditional home of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s exiled spiritual leader.
Tens of thousands of people are killed each year on China’s roads, which are usually poorly maintained and filled with reckless drivers and overloaded vehicles, especially in rural areas.
