HÀ NỘI — Fifty-eight people died and 58 others were injured in traffic accidents nationwide during the three-day holiday.

Seventy-four road accidents took place nationwide during the National Day holiday from last Saturday to yesterday, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS)’s Traffic Police General Department.

Of those, twenty-five occured yesterday, killing 22 and injuring 16.

Police nationwide handled about 9,200 road safety violations in the last three days, confiscating about VNĐ6.4 billion (US$281,600) of fines and 667 driving licenses, seizing 65 cars and 997 motorbikes.

The hotline number of the National Traffic Safety Committee received about 131 phone calls and text messages on transport violations. Most of them were about heavy vehicles carrying more passengers than allowed, increasing fare prices, and causing traffic congestion on routes leading to tourism sites and on national routes in Hà Nội and HCM City.

The two most serious accidents took place in the northern Vĩnh Phúc Province on Saturday, and central Quảng Bình Province on Sunday.

Two coach buses, one with 16 seats and another with 29 seat, collided at about 12:40 am on Saturday while traveling in the same direction on the stretch of the Nội Bài-Lào Cai Highway running through Vĩnh Phúc Province’s Bình Xuyên District.

As the result of the impact, the 16-seat coach bus then struck a 45-seat coach bus that was traveling in the same direction. Eleven passengers were injured, with four of them being hospitalised.

On Sunday morning, a north-to-south train hit a large excavating shovel that was crossing the railway some 2km from the Ngân Sơn train station in central Quảng Bình Province’s Bố Trạch District.

The accident injured the shovel’s driver, the train driver and his assistant, destroying the shovel and damaging the first two cars of the train. All 90 train passengers aboard the train were reported to have been unharmed. — VNS