Five dead, 35 injured in China bus fire (3)

GUIYANG, Feb. 27 -- Five people were killed and 35 others injured in a fire that broke out in a bus on Thursday afternoon in Guiyang City of southwest China's Guizhou Province, local authorities said.

The provincial publicity department confirmed with Xinhua that the number of injured had risen to 35, three more than previously reported.

The injured have been rushed to four separate local hospitals.

Out of the 35, 10 have been sent to the Guiyang Jinyang Hospital (GJH), where they are all in stable conditions, according to a Xinhua reporter on the spot.

In a ward of GJH, the reporter observed nurses carefully wrapping gauze on Yang Li and her sister Yang Kai, while the two moaned in pain. They suffered minor burns on their hands, faces and ears in the accident.

Some family members have already arrived at the GJH, according to a doctor with the hospital.

The bus driver, who is in his 40s, recalled the event in the vicinity of where the accident happened, saying that there were about 50 people on the bus when the fire broke out.

"I opened the door at once out of instinct, so that people could get off as soon as possible," he said.

The fire broke out at around 1 p.m. when Bus 237 was passing by a primary school in the northern part of Guiyang, the provincial capital.

A witness told a Xinhua reporter at the scene that one passenger escaped from the bus as it was burning.

Pictures posted on China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo showed the bus was engulfed in flames with thick black smoke surging toward the sky, and firemen later used hoses to douse the burning vehicle.

Other witnesses said at least 50 passengers were on board.

Locals said Bus 237, which runs between downtown and the new city, was always crowded.

"I could not get on the bus at an earlier station because it was overcrowded," a netizen with the screen name "Huhu" posted in an online forum.

Police have cordoned off the site and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

The city's publicity department said on Jan. 14, 2013 that all 1,850 buses had started using liquefied natural gas instead of gasoline for green purposes.