Foul play suspected in fatal China bus explosion
10 June 2013
A fire on a bus in southeastern China on June 7 has killed 47 people and is being investigated as a “serious criminal case,” state media said. The bus caught fire during rush hour as it was operating on elevated tracks in the coastal city of Xiamen, the official Xinhua news agency reported. A total of 34 people were admitted to hospital.
Police later found notes at the house of a local man saying he planned an arson attack on a bus. DNA evidence confirmed this man was on board the bus when it caught fire.
Buses have been targeted before in China. In 2009, a passenger ignited gasoline on a bus in southwestern Chengdu, killing 27 and injuring dozens more. Another 24 people died the same year in a shuttle bus fire in Wuxi, near Shanghai, started by a disgruntled steel worker.
In 2005, a 42-year-old farmer with terminal lung cancer set off a home-made bomb aboard a bus in southeastern China, in a suicide attack that wounded 31.