3 traffic accidents leave 56 dead in China

A commercial van slammed into a truck Monday in northwest China, killing nine people and bringing the overall death toll to 56 in three big accidents on the country's roads over the past two days. The latest crash happened in Shaanxi province just after dawn, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It did not immediately give any other details. On Sunday, 36 people were burned to death when a double-decker bus rammed into a tanker loaded with high flammable methanol on another highway in Shaanxi, causing both vehicles to burst into flames. Xinhua said 39 people were on the long-distance sleeper bus when it crashed, and that only three survived. It said the survivors were hospitalized, but didn't describe their condition. In another accident on Sunday, Xinhua said 11 people were killed and another was seriously hurt when a van crashed into a truck in southwest China's Sichuan province.