Lives not in danger from crash

Eight mainland tourists injured in a tour bus accident in northern Taiwan's Hsinchu city were still receiving medical treatment on Sunday, including four who remained in a serious condition, doctors said.

The bus, carrying 37 tourists and a tour guide from the mainland, as well as a local guide and a driver, overturned at about 11:30 am on Saturday on a highway that runs from Taipei to Taichung. The crash killed the driver immediately and injured all others on board.

The survivors were sent to hospitals in Hsinchu and the adjacent Miaoli county. 

The tour group, composed of teachers and their relatives from a high school in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, were on the second day of an eight-day tour of Taiwan when the accident occurred.

The Heilongjiang tourism administration said in a statement that the lives of those injured were not in danger and that many of the passengers who suffered slight wounds have already left the hospital.

At the time of the crash, the tour bus was traveling from Taipei to the Sun Moon Lake scenic spot in Nantou. For unknown reasons, it started to shake uncontrollably and eventually rolled onto its side in a southbound lane of the highway, according to Taiwan media reports.

Police said the cause of the accident is under investigation. Various reports said the bus had rolled over after its rear-left tire had blown out.

At a news conference on Saturday, the bus company said the driver had been deemed to be of sound mind and body before the accident. As for the bus involved in the crash, it had been bought within the past three years and had recently passed a vehicle inspection.

"The most urgent thing is to save the wounded and deal with their needs after the accident," said Ji Zhelong, deputy manager of Harbin Railway International Travel Service, which organized the trip. The agency is one of three travel agencies in Heilongjiang authorized to be in the business of arranging trips to Taiwan.

Zhang Hong, an official from the Heilongjiang tourism administration, said the general manager of the travel agency, the head of the high school in Harbin and several relatives of those who were injured will fly to Taiwan on Monday to help arrange various matters that have arisen from the accident.

"A green channel will be specifically created to provide the fastest and most convenient service for them to go to Taiwan," said Duan Yunfeng, an official with the exit and entry administration of the public security bureau of Harbin. 

An official from the Taiwan branch of the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits told Xinhua News Agency that the association will work closely with Taiwan authorities in the rescue work.

"The bus accident, although a single case, will once again underscore public concerns about travel safety in Taiwan and more or less affect the market," said Yu Xiaoqing, deputy manager of the Taiwan-bound tourism business of the Beijing-based China Travel Service.

Large road accidents that kill mainland tourists have occurred from time to time in Taiwan this year. 

Last month, a vehicle carrying 26 mainland tourists veered into a roadside ditch when traveling in central Taiwan's mountainous Alishan scenic area, injuring 13 people.

In February, a bus accident in Hualien, a county on Taiwan's east coast, killed a woman from the mainland involved in a Peking opera exchange program and injured 31 people.

"Limited by the island's special natural and geographical conditions, some of the mountain areas or coastal regions will be dangerous for tourists, especially in bad weather," Yu said.

The mainland is now the largest source of tourists to Taiwan. More than 1.26 million tourists from the mainland visited the island last year.