One bus plying route No.17 in Beijing caught fire and burned down at a road crossing near Puhuangyu, southern Beijing, early Monday, said local sources.

Both the municipal bus company and public security department confirmed there were no fatalities in the accident.

As of 7:50 a.m, the disrupted traffic at the road crossing returned to normal. The accident didn't affect the traffic at the morning rush hour.

One peddler surnamed Dong recalled the bus, with one driver and conductor, parked at roadside shortly after it hit the road.

"The fire started from the rear part of the bus at about 6 a.m. The driver attempted to put out the fire with an extinguisher, but the efforts proved futile," said Dong,"The bus was soon engulfed in big fire and burned down."

Plenty of police and fire fighters rushed to the scene of the accident.

The blackened bus frame was tucked away. Several sanitation workers were busy cleaning up the smudge from the road. One sanitation worker, Zhang Xinjiang, said:"we started to clean up the road at 7 a.m., and the smudge was very hard to remove. The debris was took away in two tricycles."

The fire fighting department is investigating the cause of the fire.

(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2009)