All injured are treated in the hospital.
Beijing:
At least 21 people were killed when a bus with students preparing for their annual college entrance exam crashed into a lake in southwest China on Tuesday.
The bus crashed into a guardrail and turned into Lake Hongshan in Guizhou Province. Another 15 were injured, the local emergency department said in a statement.
The incident happened around noon in Anshun City, and eyewitnesses said passengers on the bus were students who took their strenuous "gaokao" exams that day, the state-run broadcaster CCTV reported.
Security cameras shared by CCTV on social media showed the vehicle driving through at least five lanes and breaking into oncoming traffic before plowing through obstacles across the street.
Pictures of the scene showed search and rescue teams at the lake and the bus that was fished out of the water in the hours after the crash.
Social media users expressed their condolences to China's microblogging platform Weibo.
"I hope that the number of deaths will no longer increase. 2020 was really full of disasters and difficulties," wrote one user.
All injured are treated in the hospital. The local authorities have promised to investigate the cause of the accident.
According to Guizhou's emergency department, more than 200 people helped with rescue operations, including 55 professional divers.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated feed.)
