The Police say a brawl between a passenger and a bus driver led to the bus plunging off a bridge in southwestern China killing all 15 people on board.
An eight-second surveillance video released by Chongqing city police on its Weibo social media account shows the two people arguing and grappling with each other in the moments before the bus suddenly veered across oncoming traffic and off the bridge into the river.
A statement from Wanzhou district police said the 48-year-old female passenger asked the driver to pull over after she missed her stop, but he didn’t. She walked up to the driver’s seat and scolded him. The driver turned his head back several times arguing.
The Chongqing police also posted dashcam video from a nearby car showing the bus colliding with an oncoming vehicle before smashing through a guardrail and falling into the Yangtze, a major river in southwestern China.
Rescuers recovered the wreck of the bus Wednesday night. The official Xinhua News Agency said that 13 bodies had been retrieved from the river and two others were still missing.
No one is believed to have survived.
In their findings, the authorities blamed the 42-year-old driver for not following proper safety procedures, but ruled out any anomalies in his mental state.
The bus was also found to have no mechanical issues.
The statement concluded that both the passenger and the driver had broken laws for seriously endangering public safety.
The bus was pulled out of the river on Wednesday, and divers have so far recovered 13 bodies with two still missing.
