Seventeen killed in road accident as China's Lunar New Year travel rush begins

Local reports say a lorry hit a mourning tent set up at the side of the road

A person injured in a road accident in Nanchang, China on January 8, 2023, receives treatment in hospital. Xinhua / EPA

Seventeen people died and 22 others were injured in a traffic accident in southern China on Sunday as the annual Lunar New Year holiday travel rush got under way.

The accident occurred outside the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi province, according to the local traffic management brigade.

It was not clear how many vehicles or what types were involved and the cause was under investigation, the brigade said.

The Jimu News website quoted a local resident as saying the victims were mourners from the village of Taoling who had set up a funeral tent at the side of the road, as is common in rural China, and were hit by a passing lorry as they were preparing to travel to the local crematorium in the morning.

The woman, identified only by her surname, Deng, told the website that several of the victims were her neighbours.

The scene of the accident had already been cleared, according to another resident quoted by Jimu News, which is published by the Hubei Daily newspaper based in a neighbouring province.

The condition of the injured is not known.

Major traffic accidents, often caused by fatigued drivers and poorly maintained or overloaded vehicles, used to be common in China, but tighter regulations have reduced their frequency in recent years.

Checks on the condition of vehicles, drivers and passenger numbers are redoubled around the time of the Lunar New Year, China’s most important festival for family gatherings when tens of millions of migrant workers return to their hometowns.

With the end of most Covid-19 restrictions, the number of such trips is expected to double this year to more than two billion on and around the week-long festival season that starts this year on January 22.

China's Lunar New Year travel rush begins - in pictures