Thirteen Chinese tourists killed as bus skids off road in Laos

Thirteen Chinese tourists were killed after their bus slid off a mountain road in Laos on Monday.

The Chinese embassy in Vientiane said there were 44 Chinese on the bus at the time and 31 were injured, two of them severely.

The bus was traveling from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, an ancient capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site popular with tourists some 300 kilometers (180 miles) north from the capital.

The embassy said that in addition to its staff, workers from Chinese businesses in the country were sent to help with the rescue effects.

Some Chinese military doctors who were in Laos on a joint humanitarian exercise were sent by helicopter to Luang Prabang to treat the injured.

The visitors were from the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu and on a tour organised by the Nanjing Jinling Business International Travel Service, Jiangsu TV reported.

Most of the people in the group were in their fifties and sixties.

The number of Chinese visitors to Laos has soared in recent years, up from 200,000 in 2012, to 639,000 in 2017 and 800,000 last year.