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13 killed amid travel rush

Published:Monday | February 11, 2019 | 12:00 AM

BEIJING (AP):

Accidents on icy highways in central China left at least 13 dead and dozens injured this weekend as millions of families were heading home from the Lunar New Year holiday.

Five were killed shortly after 5 a.m. yesterday in a 23-car pile-up near the city of Anqing in Anhui province.

A second accident followed three hours later near the provincial capital of Hefei after a minibus collided with a passenger vehicle.

On Saturday night, two pile-ups involving at least 100 vehicles killed two and injured 50, 10 seriously, in Guizhou province.

Police said investigations were under way. Both Guizhou and Anhui have been hit by snow and freezing rain, leaving highways dangerously slick.

Photos of the Anhui accident that left five dead posted by online news website The Paper showed smashed vehicles squeezed up against each other along a mountainous section of highway.

Despite those incidents, this year’s three-week travel rush has seen relatively few deadly accidents compared to previous years, possibly as a result of tighter vehicle inspections to reduce the number of overloaded or poorly maintained vehicles.