A public school bus collided with a group of children outside a school in eastern China on Tuesday, resulting in at least 11 casualties, according to state media, which cited local authorities.
The incident took place at 7 a.m. near the entrance of a middle school in Tai’an City, Shandong province, as reported by the state news agency Xinhua.
Photos shared on social media showed adults attending to children lying in the road, their clothes soaked in blood, next to a large gray bus. However, AFP was unable to independently verify the authenticity of these images, some of which appeared to have been removed later.
Many public schools in China reopened this week for the new academic year.
Traffic accidents resulting in fatalities are common in China due to poor safety standards and widespread reckless driving. In July, a vehicle struck pedestrians in Changsha, a central city, killing eight and injuring five.
Later in March, a bus carrying students collided with a dump truck in Nantong, a city in Jiangsu province, leading to one death and eight injuries.
In a separate incident last year, six people were killed and one injured in an early morning stabbing outside a kindergarten in Guangdong province.
Another stabbing in 2022 at a kindergarten in Jiangxi province resulted in three deaths and six injuries.
