At least 19 people were killed after a passenger bus collided with a truck in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Thursday afternoon, a senior local official said.

Nineteen people were killed after a bus carrying more than 40 passengers collided with a truck in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Thursday afternoon.

The 42-seat bus carrying 41 people aboard bumped into the rear of a truck that was parking at the side of a section of the Harbin-Tongjiang expressway at about 17:45 p.m., said Wang Weixu, deputy mayor of Harbin, the provincial capital.

The truck parked after it crashed with another vehicle a few minutes earlier.

The injured had been sent to hospitals but the number of those wounded was being verified.

Further investigation in the pileup was underway.

The accident occurred on the Harbin-Tongjiang expressway.