HEFEI, CHINA (BNO NEWS) — Nine people were killed on Sunday afternoon and more than two dozen others were injured after a bus rear-ended a cement-mixing truck in eastern China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The accident happened at around 3 p.m. local time when a bus bound for the city of Ma’anshan from neighboring Jiangsu Province rammed into a stopped cement-mixing truck. A total of 36 people were on board the bus.

According to sources with the local emergency center, Xinhua reported, six people died instantly, while three others died after medical treatments failed. The bus driver is listed among the casualties.

In addition to the fatalities, another 27 people were injured, including 13 who are in a critical condition. A representative from the bus company claimed that the vehicle was not overloaded, but police are investigating the cause of the accident.

Roads in China are known to be among the most dangerous in the world with more than 70,000 fatalities in 2009 alone. Many accidents are the result of drivers violating traffic laws, bad road conditions and overloaded vehicles.

In late July, 41 people were killed when an overcrowded double-decker bus caught fire on the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway in Xinyang City of Henan Province. It followed a deadly road accident several weeks earlier, in Hubei province, when 26 people were killed.

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