China on Thursday expressed condolences after a bus carrying 44 Chinese tourists crashed in icy conditions in Iceland on Wednesday, leaving one dead and 11 injured.
“The Foreign Ministry and Chinese embassy in Iceland are paying a great deal of attention to the accident, and the embassy launched an emergency response mechanism immediately,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news conference in Beijing.
According to Hua, the embassy has sent personnel to the hospital to visit and comfort the injured tourists, and asked authorities in Iceland to conduct a thorough investigation into the accident.
The embassy also required all-out efforts to treat and cure the injured, and urged travel agencies involved to fulfill their responsibilities and deal with the aftermath of the accident, Hua said.
“The ministry and embassy will continue to closely follow the latest developments, and actively provide necessary assistance to Chinese tourists involved,” she added.
Police in Iceland say one person was killed and 12 more were critically injured Wednesday when a bus carrying 46 Chinese tourists skidded off the road after a rear-end collision with a compact car.
The Icelandic blood bank sent out an alert for donations of type O blood following the accident on Route 1, a national road that runs around the island.
The car and bus crashed near the Eldhraun lava field, about 250 kilometers east of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital.
Police say the bus flipped on its side when it went off the road, trapping two passengers underneath. One died at the scene.
Bus company owner Fjalar Ulfarsson said the Chinese group was on the fourth day of a weeklong visit to Iceland when the accident happened.
"The road there is narrow and had some icing from what I gather," Ulfarsson told The Associated Press.
Three helicopters were used to transport the most severely injured to a hospital emergency room in the capital.
A relief station was set up for the other 33 passengers in nearby Kirkjubaejarklaustur village.
The car's driver and a passenger also were tourists, visiting Iceland from Lithuania. They were not injured, officials said.
South Iceland Police said an initial investigation suggested the car slowed down in front of the bus while attempting to turn toward a lookout point.
