Twelve people, including 11 kindergarteners, were killed Tuesday when a school bus crashed and then burst into flames as it traveled through a tunnel in Weihai City, Shandong Province, east China.

Of the 11 children, who were aged between three and six, five were Republic of Korea nationals and six Chinese nationals. They were all students at an international kindergarten in Weihai, local authorities said.

The accident occurred at about 8:59 a.m. inside Taojiakuang tunnel in Huancui District when the bus was on its way to the kindergarten with 13 people onboard, including the children’s teacher.

The driver also died and the teacher has sustained serious injuries.

The provincial government has assigned a team to investigate the incident. It will be headed by a vice provincial governor.

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Sixteen suspects have been detained in a recent crackdown on drugs in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and neighboring Guangdong Province, local police said Tuesday.

Police from the public security bureau of Laibin City received a report on April 27 that a gang of drug manufacturers from Huizhou City of Guangdong Province gathered in the city to produce ketamine and planned to transport raw materials for drug production from east China’s Shandong Province to Xiangzhou County in Laibin.

After investigation, police detained eight suspects at the drug manufacturing site in a tree farm in Xiangzhou County at 4 p.m. on Friday. They also seized about 250 kilograms of ketamine, 1,078 kilograms of semi-finished drugs, equipment for drug manufacturing and four vehicles at the site.

Police seized two other suspects and drug-related money totaling 1.4 million yuan (202,700 U.S. dollars) in a residential community in Laibin City on the same day.

After the drug manufacturing site in Guangxi was busted, the Huizhou police then detained another six suspects from the gang in Guangdong.

Further investigation is under way.

Conjoined twin girls were successfully separated after an hour-long surgery at Children’s Hospital of Fudan University yesterday.

The twins were delivered by cesarean section in Shanghai on February 9 when their 26-year-old mother, from neighboring Jiangsu Province, was at 34 weeks of pregnancy.

They were then sent to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for treatment.

CT scans showed that they were connected by the liver and stomach.

Doctors said the best time for surgery would be when the twins were 3 months old and had a combined weight of 10 kilograms.

By early May, the twins weighed a combined 11kg and were reported to have had a normal growth index.

With the help of three-dimensional imaging technology, the baby girls were separated at 11:16a.m. yesterday. Doctors took another hour to close the skin incision and umbilicus.

Conjoined twins are rare — with a global incidence of 1 in 200,000. Most of them are connected by the chest and belly.

Doctors said about half of conjoined babies die before birth. Some could not live for more than a day after birth, and only about 30 percent of conjoined infants had the chance to survive.

In this case, the deformity was detected in a Jiangsu hospital when the mother was 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Local doctors suggested an abortion, but the mother insisted on visiting a hospital in Shanghai.

After tests, doctors at the Children’s Hospital believed the twins would have a good chance of survival after liver separation surgery.

Six officials, including a deputy county chief, were sacked Monday after 18 miners died in a poisonous gas leak in a coal mine in central China’s Hunan Province.

Rescuers confirmed the death toll Monday, after saving another 37 miners.

The accident happened on Sunday morning at the Jilinqiao Colliery in Youxian County.

Cai Yongheng, rescue team director, said rescuers had to carry oxygen tanks during the search.

Investigators are testing the makeup of the poisonous gas. Police have detained those allegedly responsible for the accident.

A miner who declined to be named said that after the mine manager was informed of the gas leak, he asked workers to enter the mine to rescue their colleagues.

Some of the rescue team, including the manager himself, were among those miners killed.

Another employee said a discontinued mine near the Jilinqiao Colliery had been discharging chemical waste gas, which may have triggered the fatal gas leak.

Local authorities placed responsibility for the accident on six officials, including the deputy county chief Wang Zhuowen, who were removed from their posts.