Payout for schoolbus victims

    The families of the 19 children and two adults killed in last Wednesday’s schoolbus crash in Gansu Province will each receive 436,000 yuan (US$68,125) in compensation from local authorities.

    The nine-seater minibus — carrying 62 kindergarten pupils aged between 2 and 6, plus a driver and a teacher — collided with a coal truck last Wednesday when it was traveling to the Xiaoboshi private kindergarten in Yulinzi Township. The other 43 children on board were injured, 11 of them seriously.

    Chemical plant blast

    Fourteen workers were killed and five others injured on Saturday in a chemical plant explosion in East China’s Shandong Province.

    The explosion occurred at a melamine* production facility of Shandong Liaherd Chemical Industry Co. Ltd. in the city of Xintai when workers were conducting maintenance on a condenser*, the Xintai city government said in a statement on Saturday.

    Train crash

    An investigation into the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash that killed at least 40 people and injured nearly 200 others has concluded that “poor management” was to blame, State press said on Monday.

    The July 23 crash sparked a flood of criticism of the railway ministry and led the authorities in Beijing to freeze the rapid expansion of the high-speed rail network, already the world’s most extensive.

    Hi-Tech Fair

    A record 536,000 people visited the 13th China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF) that closed at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center in Futian District on Monday.

    The fair attracted nearly 2,504 investors and 2,928 exhibitors from 58 countries and regions, including Russia, Germany, Hungary and Finland, said Mayor Xu Qin at Monday’s closing ceremony.

    It was the largest fair to date, with the most visitors, investors and exhibitors and the sales volume was slightly higher than last year, Xu said.

(SD-Agencies)