Six killed by falling boulder after visit to holy mountain

Six people died and two were seriously injured on a holy mountain in Vietnam’s Mekong delta, when a falling boulder crushed their car.

The rock-fall struck as a party of people were driving down Forbidden Mountain in An Giang province on Saturday after visiting a pagoda, the newspaper Tuoi Tre reported yesterday.

The boulder hit the first vehicle in the group, an eight-seater van, killing five on the spot. A sixth person died on the way to hospital.

The 2,300ft mountain is home to many popular pagodas and Buddhist statues. Between January and August each year, 1.2 million people visit to pray for good luck and prosperity.

The accident could have been caused by the recent use of dynamite to build a new road to a large pagoda near the peak, Tuoi Tre quoted Nguyen Thanh Tam, director of the provincial transport department, as saying.