Five children died when a bus crashed into pupils gathered at school gates this morning.
The children had been getting ready to start classes at a Tai’an City high school in China’s eastern Shandong province.
But a bus there to carry classmates crashed right into them just before 7am local time.
It killed five students and 11 parents, according to local reports.
Video footage shared on social media shows parents cradling the bloodied bodies of their kids, with some lying lifeless beneath the bus.
Described as a rental bus customised for transporting students, the vehicle reportedly ‘lost control’ before ploughing into the crowd.
Its driver has been detained while police investigate the cause of the crash, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
At least 13 people were injured in the collision.
One of those remains in critical condition.
School safety has long been a problem in China, with overloaded school buses and poorly designed buildings of particular concern.
In one incident, 11 pre-school children died when the minivan taking them to nursery fell into a roadside pool in Guixi city, Jiangxi province, in 2011.
A fire killed 13 children when it ripped through a boarding school in central Henan province in January this year. They were nine and 10 years old.
Three kids were stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Lianjiang town, Guangdong province, in July last year. Two parents and a teacher also died.
A 25-year-old man was arrested for that attack.
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