A minivan knocked into three policemen who were on duty on an expressway Thursday afternoon, killing two of them on the spot, according to sources with the local police of Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

The injured policeman later died in a hospital, the sources said.

The tragedy happened at the Beixing section of the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, when a minivan carrying 11 passengers on its way from Zhuzhou in central China's Hunan Province to Dongguan in Guangdong lost control and bumped into the three officers who stood beside a police wagon on the expressway.

The Guangdong provincial public security department confirmed that the three were traffic police on duty.

Several passengers on the van were also injured, but not seriously.

Xiao Lesheng, one of the passengers on the van, told Xinhua that he and other passengers took the van at 9:00 AM Thursday to Dongguan, where they worked in plants. He and the other injured passengers were sent to Beixing Hospital for treatment.

The minivan driver got out of the van and fled after the accident.

The provincial public security department has sent a team to investigate the accident.

(Xinhua News Agency March 2, 2007)