BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle on a highway and preventing more cars from careening down a hillside after a stretch of road in the country’s mountainous south. collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Wang Xiangnan was driving on the highway on Wednesday in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction on the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him of the collapse, local media reported.
Reacting quickly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News cited Wang as saying. Meanwhile, his wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation, he said.
“I didn’t think much. I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told the Chinese media outlet.
Wang’s courageous actions not only received praise from Chinese social media users, but also recognition from the China Workers’ Development Foundation.
The foundation announced on Friday that, in partnership with an automobile company, it awarded Wang 10,000 yuan ($1,414). A charity project linked to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding also donated an equal amount to Wang, newspaper Dahe Daily reported. Wang told the newspaper that he would donate the money to the families of victims of the collapse.
Local media also reported that another man knelt to stop the cars from continuing on the highway.
The accident occurred after a month of heavy rain in Guangdong. Some of the 23 vehicles that plunged into the deep ravine caught fire, raising thick clouds of smoke.
Around 30 people were hospitalized. On Saturday, one of them was discharged from hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The rest were improving, but one remains in serious condition.
On Saturday, the government of Guangdong’s Meizhou city said in a statement that authorities would carry out citywide checks on expressways, railways and roads in mountainous areas. A team led by the provincial governor is investigating the cause of the collapse, Southcn.com reported.
The Chinese government had sent a deputy prime minister to oversee recovery efforts and called for better security measures following calls from President Xi Jinping and No. 2 Communist Party official Premier Li Qiang to quickly deal with the tragedy.
The dispatch by Zhang, who is also a member of one of the ruling Communist Party’s top bodies, illustrates concern about a possible public backlash to the disaster, the latest in a series of deadly infrastructure failures.
