About 95,000 people lost their lives in 617,000 road accidents in China from January to November last year, statistics from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) show.

The MPS released the figures on Friday, saying that the traffic death toll on dropped by 4.7 per cent over the same period of 2002, and the number of road accidents decreased by 13.9 per cent.

The accidents caused direct economic losses of 3.1 billion yuan (about US$375 million), 6.5 per cent down from the previous year.

The statistics showed the number of fires in the 11 months decreased by 5.6 per cent to 226,000, causing 2,091 deaths, 1.9 per cent fewer than the previous year.

The direct property losses resultant from fires dropped by 1.5 per cent to 1.4 billion yuan (US$169 million).

Meng Hongwei, assistant minister, said that passenger flows would grow rapidly with China's traditional Spring Festival holiday looming, which might lead to overloading and other violations of traffic rules. Meanwhile, the dry winter weather combined with Lunar new year fireworks celebrations would likely lead to more fires.

He called on all local departments to step up prevention measures against these accidents, and reminded the public to obey traffic and fire control rules.

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