4 Chinese tourists badly injured in bus crash in Laos fly back to homeland

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s Peace Train medical team, assisted by the Lao side, helps a Chinese tourist injured in a bus crash in northern Laos to get on the China Eastern Airlines flight MU2574 in Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Laos, Aug. 22, 2019. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s Peace Train medical team has accompanied four Chinese tourists badly injured in a deadly bus crash in northern Laos to take flights back to China Thursday afternoon. (Xinhua/Zhang Jianhua)

VIENTIANE, Aug. 22 -- The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s Peace Train medical team has accompanied four Chinese tourists badly injured in a deadly bus crash in northern Laos to take flights back to China Thursday afternoon.

At 3:40 p.m. local time (0840 GMT) on Thursday, three injured Chinese tourists, including two severely wounded, escorted by the staff of the PLA medical team, took the PLA Z-8G rescue helicopter to fly back to China at Wattay International Airport of Lao capital Vientiane.

Shortly later, another "Peace Train" medical group escorted the worst injured tourist to return to Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province on China Eastern Airlines flight MU2574.

The four wounded are all above 71 years old and the eldest is 79. According to the "Peace Train" medical team, the wounded have initially treated by the medical team, and their conditions have gone stable, meeting the requirements for airlift. They will be sent to a PLA hospital in Kunming for further treatment.

Chinese Ambassador to Laos Jiang Zaidong visited the wounded tourists and their families after the accident.

Altogether 13 Chinese nationals were killed, 31 others injured, as well as two Lao nationals wounded in a bus crash in northern Laos near Luang Prabang, some 180 km north of Vientiane on Monday.

After the accident, the PLA "Peace Train" medical team flied 20 comparatively worse injured Chinese tourists back to Vientiane for treatment from Luang Prabang on Tuesday.

The team has been to the Laos to attend the "Peace Train-2019" China-Laos humanitarian and medical joint rescue exercise since Aug. 15.