A MAN suspected of setting fire to a public bus in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwestern China yesterday has been apprehended. The fire killed 17 people and injured 32 others.

    The dead included eight males and nine females, said Ma Kai, vice mayor of Yinchuan, the region’s capital, at a press conference. Six of the injured are in serious condition, including one in critical condition, doctors said. Lives of the others are not threatened.

    Officials said the crowded bus caught fire suddenly, trapping a number of people inside.

    Firefighters were able to put out the blaze in 20 minutes and those injured were rushed to a nearby hospital. The incident occurred at 7 a.m.

    Police officials had suspected the fire to be a case of arson and arrested a 34-year-old man named Ma Yongping in relation to a “major crime” in an incomplete building in Helan County at 4:30 p.m. after a manhunt. His trousers were burned.

    State media did not speculate on a motive for the attack.

    A woman who works in the area said: “By the time I came to work there was nothing left but a metal bus frame, but my colleague who witnessed the incident said the bus caught fire after arriving at a bus station.”

    “People were trying to run away from the bus and several bodies were seen lying outside it with their clothes all burned. It was horrific. I’m scared now that travelling by bus has become dangerous,” she said.

    “I was sitting at the front of the bus when suddenly people started screaming ‘Fire! Bus on Fire!’” Hu Yuexiang, 26, recalled. “When I turned around, the flames were racing toward me and quickly my shoes were on fire.”

    “I thought the bus was about to explode and I was going to die,” Hu said. “Then the door opened and we all rushed out.”

    Hu said he wanted to film the fire, but the bus quickly “turned into a skeleton.”

    The bus driver sustained minor burns in the incident and is assisting police with the investigation.

    The 84-seater bus had about 40 people on board when it caught fire.

    The bus, which was bound for Yinchuan Railway Station, belongs to State-owned Yinchuan Public Transport Co. Ltd. The company has begun a safety check of all its vehicles following the incident.

    This is not the first such case reported in China.

    In June 2013, in a bid to commit suicide, a man set a bus in northern China on fire, in which 48 people died. In 2014, a 35-year-old man suffering from a relapse of tuberculosis set fire to a bus in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, injuring 33 people. He was executed in 2015.(SD-Xinhua)