China has suspended three officials for the fatal crash of a bus carrying people to a coronavirus quarantine centre in Guizhou province, amid rising anger over the strict enforcement of Beijing's Zero COVID policy in the country.
Twenty-seven people were killed and 20 others injured when the bus carrying people, who came in contact with those who tested COVID positive, to a quarantine centre crashed on a highway.
Official media first reported the bus crash as a normal accident but later reports emerged on social media that the vehicle was transporting contacts of COVID-positive patients from Guiyang. The social media posts were soon censored.
Photos posted online showed everyone on the vehicle, including the driver, wearing white hazmat suits and goggles.
The crash and the botched attempts to conceal that it was the bus carrying the people to COVID quarantine centre have evoked public anger in social media, rarely seen in recent times. Following public anger, three officials were suspended.
Besides the suspension of three officials which included Zhu Gang, Yunyang district ruling Communist Party head of Guiyang on Monday, Lin Gang, deputy mayor of Guiyang, rendered a public apology.
Official media carried photos of Lin bowing in front of the cameras at the press briefing on Monday, apologizing to all for the great losses of people's lives caused by the accident.
Guiyang, a city of nearly six million people, went into a snap lockdown at the start of the month and many residents have been struggling to get enough food. Wang Jie, a Guiyang official in charge of the quarantine transfers, said Saturday last that many of the thousands of people believed to have been exposed to the virus had been transferred to quarantine centres.