Bus Full of Chinese Tourists Crashes in Canada, Injuring More Than 20

OTTAWA, Ontario — A bus carrying about 37 tourists from China crashed on eastern Ontario’s busiest highway Monday, and local news media and officials said about 24 were hospitalized, including at least six with critical injuries.

Aiden Liang, the manager of Union Tour Express, the company that owned the bus, said it was on a 10-day tour that began in Washington, D.C., on May 29. The crash occurred at 2:45 p.m. while the bus was traveling from Ottawa to Toronto.

Liang said all of the passengers were from China, although he did not know where they came from within the country. He said he was not certain about the number of people on board.

The bus was traveling west on Highway 401, Ontario’s main expressway, when it veered off the pavement and smashed into a rock embankment near Prescott, about 60 miles southwest of Ottawa, Canadian media reported. Photographs and video from the scene indicate that the right side of the bus was extensively damaged as it scraped along the rock face before stopping. Windows were missing, baggage doors were torn off and there was a long trail of shorn-off debris behind the bus.

The hospital in nearby Brockville said on Twitter that it had received five patients, all in critical condition.

“We have a Mandarin translator on site to support them,” it added in a post.

Joshua McNamara, a spokesman for Ontario’s air ambulance service, said that it flew three people farther west to Kingston. The Ottawa Hospital, which operates hospitals at three sites, said on Twitter that it was treating three bus crash patients. It reported that one was in critical condition and two were in serious but stable condition.

Eight other people were treated at a small hospital in Kemptville, and all were in stable condition, officials said.

Emergency service radio calls indicated that many of the passengers suffered lacerations.

Liang said that Union Tour Express, which has its headquarters in Peabody, Massachusetts, and another office in New York City, has 18 buses and caters to tourists from China who are visiting North America.

He said this was the first serious crash the company has had in its seven-year history. The driver of the bus involved in the crash, he said, has worked for the company for about one month and worked as a bus driver elsewhere for about a year. He did not know the age of the bus involved in Monday’s crash.