Most of the 13 Hong Kong tourists injured in a highway accident on their way to Zhangjiajie, UNESCO heritage site in central China's Hunan Province, were discharged from the hospital and left for Shanghai.

According to local sources, around 1 p.m. last Saturday, a travel bus with 42 passengers aboard, including 37 Hong Kong tourists on a package tour, ran out of the road as the bus driver attempted to avoid another vehicle inside Ningxiang County, also in Hunan, leaving 13 HK tourists wounded.

Yang Guoping, director of the emergency first-aid center of Ningxiang County, said of the injured, two suffered from fractures and a third one suffered injuries with the eyeballs.

By press time, only the three still remain hospitalized. Ten other tourists who had slight injuries were discharged from the local hospital after some treatment.

Because of the accident, the Hong Kong tour group changed their itinerary of travel. Apart from the three seriously injured ones and two members from the tour group who offered to stay behind to take care of the seriously injured, 32 tourists flew to Shanghai last Saturday night.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2005)