Xinhua News Agency reported that the death toll in a May 15 incident in northwest China, where a tour bus fell off a cliff, has risen to 35.

The New York Times reported that the said incident is believed to log the most fatalities from a single accident in the country since August 2014. The report added that the accident appears to have happened when the bus was making a sharp turn in the valley. Xinhua was quoted by the Times as saying that preliminary investigation found the cause to be an "operating error."

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The bus carrying 46 passengers fell off a ravine in Chunhua, Xianyang City at around 3:37 p.m. local time, instantly killing 25, with the remaining others rushed to a hospital to get medical treatment. Xinhua said that another 10 people have lost their lives at the hospital and five of the 11 surviving tourists are in critical condition.

Passengers of the bus joined a two-day tour of the countryside, wherein many of the tourists lived nearby the province and were mostly elderly, the report said.

Xinhua also revealed photos of the crash site in its Twitter page.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 200,000 people killed in traffic-related incidents in China annually, Times reported, citing the organization's representative in China, Bernhard Schwartländer.

Times noted that an August 2014 bus accident claimed the lives of 44 people traveling in Tibet, while a collision between a crowded bus and a truck in Hunan Province claimed the lives of about 43 people.

It can be noted that China is known for its traffic jams. Forbes, in a list enumerating the worst traffic congestion incidents in the world, cited a 2010 incident in China where motorists traversing the 62-mile Beijing-Tibet expressways were trapped for 12 days. Forbes noted that the heavy traffic was not caused by any accidents or road closures but was purely due to the sheer number of vehicles travelling at the same time.

Tagsnorthwest China, China Bus Accident, bus accident, death, accident, china traffic