At least 21 people were killed and 15 others injured when a bus carrying students preparing to sit their annual college entrance exam plunged into a lake in southwest China on Tuesday.
The bus crashed into a guardrail and veered into Hongshan Lake in Guizhou province, the local emergency management department said in a statement.
The incident took place around noon in Anshun city and eyewitnesses said the passengers on the bus included students who were sitting their gruelling “gaokao” examinations that day, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Images from the scene showed search and rescue teams standing by the lake and the bus being fished out of the water in the hours after the crash.
Social media users expressed their condolences on China’s microblogging platform Weibo.
One of the users wrote, “I hope the number of deaths will not rise anymore. 2020 has truly been full of disasters and difficulties”.
All those who got injured in a fateful accident were immediately taken to the hospital.
Guizhou’s emergency management department said more than 200 people helped with rescue efforts, including 55 professional divers.
Across China on Tuesday, some 10.7 million students began taking the college entrance exams in 400,000 rooms, according to the People’s Daily.
In 2019, at least 36 people were killed and many injured after a packed coach with a flat tyre collided with a truck in east China.
(With inputs from agency)