DHAKA: More than 200,000 people are killed on China’s dangerous roads every year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday - at least four times official government statistics.

Writing in the government-published China Daily newspaper, the WHO’s representative in the country Bernhard Schwartlaender said the estimated deaths were ‘entirely preventable’.

‘In China, over 10,000 children under 15 years of age die each year as a result of injuries sustained in a road crash,’ he added, reports The Straits Times.

‘Many more are severely injured.’

The WHO’s 2013 global status report on road safety estimated Chinese road deaths at 275,983 in 2010.

Government data for road deaths in China are shrouded in secrecy, like many statistics in the country, and the WHO figures are strikingly higher than official pronouncements.

BDST: 1534 HRS, MAY 06, 2015
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