The National Traffic Safety Committee reported that in the 5 days from 28 January to 1 February, 290 traffic accidents occurred, killing 135 people, and injuring 313 in Vietnam.

Of those, 130 died in road accidents, four in rail incidents and one in a waterway accident.

This is up by 101 cases, up by 180 injured people but down by 30 deaths compared to the same period last year.

Yesterday (the third day of the Lunar New Year), the country saw 77 accidents killing 28 and injuring 75.

There were no serious cases but in the 6 days from 28 January to 2 February there were 367 accidents killing 162. This means 27 persons die daily during the period.

During that time, police handled 21,226 traffic violations, collected over VND9.8 billion (US$465,800) in fines, and impounded 17 cars and 4,472 motorbikes.

In 2013, Vietnam had 29,385 traffic accidents which killed 9,369 people and injured about 29,500 others.