FOURTEEN people were hurt after a driver steered his car to hit motorcycles and pedestrians in a central China city yesterday afternoon, witnesses and local officials said.

This latest of a series of road tragedies that have stirred public outrage occurred in downtown Yiyang City, Hunan Province, at about 5pm.

The injured, including the driver, have been hospitalized and there are no immediate reports of deaths, officials with Yiyang's publicity department said.

Police are investigating whether the driver was drunk, said officials who declined to provide further details.

Glass shards and blood stains were seen at the accident site, witnesses said. A couple of unconfirmed photos uploaded to the Internet show some motorcycles and injured people lying at the side of a main road.

Internet users who claimed to be witnesses said when the car raged through the Taohualun Street, the power of the crashes threw some victims several meters away.

The tragedy occurred just weeks after a hit-and-run accident in northern China's Hebei Province sparked massive popular outrage at the drunken son of a police official.

Li Qiming, the drunk driver who killed one girl and injured another on a school campus, shouted "My father is Li Gang!" when he was stopped by a crowd. Li's father is a deputy chief of a local district police bureau in Baoding City.

Sarcastic Chinese Internet users soon spread the phrase "My father is Li Gang" over the blogs, on-line forums, and social networking sites.

"Another Li Gang! Another Li Gang!" local Internet users cried out on Red Net Forum, a popular site in Hunan, following Monday's crash. But it is not clear whether it was an accident or another extreme case of people with personal grudge venting the anger at the society, netizens said.

• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
• province [´prɔvins] n.省；领域；范围 (初中英语单词)
• tragedy [´trædʒidi] n.悲剧；惨案；灾难 (初中英语单词)
• drunken [´drʌŋkən] a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词)
• campus [´kæmpəs] n.大学校园；学校场地 (初中英语单词)
• bureau [´bjuərəu] n.局；编辑部；事务所 (初中英语单词)
• phrase [freiz] n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词)
• extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
• outrage [´aut,reidʒ] n.残暴 vt.虐待；伤害 (高中英语单词)
• massive [´mæsiv] a.厚实的；魁伟的 (高中英语单词)
• deputy [´depjuti] n.代理人；代表 (高中英语单词)
• grudge [grʌdʒ] vt.&n.吝啬；怨恨 (高中英语单词)
• downtown [,daun´taun] ad.&a.在商业区 (英语四级单词)