Vietnamese vets killed on way to anniversary to mark war”s end

HANOI, Vietnam – Twenty-nine Vietnamese war veterans, a driver and a tour guide were killed in a bus crash Thursday while en route to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, police said.

The bus had rounded a curve on the old Ho Chi Minh trail – which has been converted into a highway – about 7:30 a.m., and plummeted about 70 yards down a mountain in Kon Tum province, about 90 miles south of Danang, said A Tri, a district police chief.

Only two of the 33 people aboard survived, he said.

The veterans, including 14 women, were aged 60-70 and had fought for Vietnam’s independence from the French and later to force an American withdrawal from the former South Vietnam during the war, he said. They were from a neighborhood in Hanoi.

National broadcaster VTV showed video of the burned wreckage at the bottom of a deep ravine and rescuers hauling up the bodies wrapped in plastic.

Dozens of police and soldiers helped recover the bodies said Le Duy Hai, Kontum’s deputy police chief. The site was so steep that rescuers had to pull themselves up the slopes with rope, he said.

The veterans left Hanoi on Monday as part of a tour to visit old battlefields with plans to arrive in the former South Vietnam capital of Saigon to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the end of the war on April 30, said a local official from Hanoi who gave his name only as Lien.

A small group of elderly men huddled over a list of those killed, searching for names they knew, at a local government office in the Kim Lien precinct of Hanoi.

“I was very shocked to hear the news. It’s a tragedy and a big loss for our people,” said an 83-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War and Dien Bien Phu who knew two of the victims. He declined to give his name but said, “They were my friends.”

Another woman in the neighborhood said her husband, also a veteran, had wanted to go on the same bus trip but couldn’t afford the $189 cost.

“It’s a big shock and a big pain. They went on that trip to visit the battlefields but it turned out to be a big funeral for them,” said Pham Thi Tan, 70. “We were very lucky.”