A truck driver managed to spare pedestrians a disaster on a highway in China’s Guangdong province, after part of it collapsed, leaving dozens of victims, and injured.
The accident occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning, on a highway in a mountainous area in the south of the country, killing at least 48 people and injuring others.
Wang Xiangnan, the former soldier who was driving his truck on the road, noticed several vehicles moving in the opposite direction and quickly received a notification from a colleague of the horrific collapse.
Wang decided to accidentally stop his truck on the highway to prevent further cars from advancing towards the affected area, while his wife rushed to alert other drivers.
This action prevented more vehicles from falling into the deep valley, reducing the number of casualties as a result of the collapse.
“I didn’t think much, I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told local media, as the China Workers’ Development Corporation gave Wang a financial reward of 10,000 yuan, an amount he pledged to donate to the families of the victims.
The incident follows a month of heavy rains in the region, which affected soil stability and collapse, for which the Chinese authorities opened an investigation to determine the real causes.
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