At least 11 people were killed and nine others were injured after a traffic collision in north China's Hebei province, the official news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday. The crash involved a bus, carrying 19 people, and a lorry on a national highway in the city of Zhangjiakou.
The agency cited a city government official as saying that one of the injured is still in a serious condition. Reports said that the drivers of both the vehicles are being treated in hospital under police custody. Investigations are going on to find the exact cause of the accident.
Deadly road accidents are quite common in China as the traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced by police. The authorities said in December that there were more than 180,000 traffic accidents and 58,000 deaths in China 2015.
The country's frequently overcrowded long-distance buses are particularly prone to high fatalities. In March, 10 people were killed and 38 others were injured when a bus collided with a cement truck in the southwestern province of Yunnan.
In May, 11 young South Korean and Chinese children were among 13 people killed when a school bus burst into flames in a tunnel in Shandong province. Authorities later accused the driver, who died, of intentionally setting the bus on fire.
Another accident took place in December after a minibus plunged into a lake in the central city of Wuhan killing at least 18 people. Last November, a pile-up on an expressway in the northern province of Shanxi killed 17 people and damaged 56 vehicles.
