Wed Apr 8, 2009 1:39am
YANGON (Reuters) - Twenty people died and 25 were injured when their bus fell from a mountain road due to mechanical failure as they were on a pilgrimage to Buddhist temples in northern Myanmar, an official newspaper said on Wednesday.
Sixteen women were among the dead in the April 2 accident on Meitaung Mountain in Rakhine State, about 300 miles north of the country's main city, Yangon, the Myanma Alin daily reported.
Road accidents are common in the impoverished former Burma because of poor roads and defective vehicles.
The military government has not allowed ordinary citizens to import cars for over a decade. Permits are normally only given to senior government officials and their business associates.
As a result, about 90 percent of passenger cars on the road are reconditioned Japanese vehicles often made decades ago.
(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Alan Raybould and Jerry Norton)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5370V220090408
YANGON (Reuters) - Twenty people died and 25 were injured when their bus fell from a mountain road due to mechanical failure as they were on a pilgrimage to Buddhist temples in northern Myanmar, an official newspaper said on Wednesday.
Sixteen women were among the dead in the April 2 accident on Meitaung Mountain in Rakhine State, about 300 miles north of the country's main city, Yangon, the Myanma Alin daily reported.
Road accidents are common in the impoverished former Burma because of poor roads and defective vehicles.
The military government has not allowed ordinary citizens to import cars for over a decade. Permits are normally only given to senior government officials and their business associates.
As a result, about 90 percent of passenger cars on the road are reconditioned Japanese vehicles often made decades ago.
(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Alan Raybould and Jerry Norton)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5370V220090408
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