Accident for crematorium – lorry hits waiting people: 19 dead

According to local media, a truck had driven into a funeral procession. The accident happened just after midnight in Taoling village, southeast of Nanchang city in eastern Jiangxi province. Because of the large crowd to the crematorium, relatives and friends waited outside and had set up collections for the dead along the side of the road, local residents reported to the government. They would have liked to be present at the cremation the next morning.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, police said. Many of the dead were from the village of Taoling. Shortly after the accident became known, the police warned motorists for “foggy weather” in the region. “There is poor visibility, which can easily lead to traffic accidents,” it said.

People queue for weeks in front of crematoriums
It was not mentioned whether the cremation facility, like so many others in China’s current massive corona wave, was overloaded with the high number of Covid 19 victims. State media have been reporting for weeks about long waiting times, traffic jams and queues for crematoriums because the large number of bodies cannot be cremated quickly enough.

Road accidents are common in China due to a lack of safety controls. In December, one person was killed in a collision with hundreds of vehicles. In September, 27 people were killed when the bus taking them to quarantine facilities in the southwest of the country overturned.