All twenty-five bodies have been recovered after a bus veered off a highway and plunged into a reservoir in northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Thursday morning, according to local police.

The accident occurred at 00:50 AM when a bus with 36 people on board was heading from Luzhou City in the neighboring Sichuan Province to Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi. The bus veered off the highway and plunged into the Baohe Reservoir in Hanzhong City, 300 kilometers southwest of Xi'an.

Twenty-five people, including two children, have been confirmed dead, and eleven people survived. Jin Xiaojie, the driver, and another co-driver have been detained by the police, according to the Huashang Newspaper, a Xi'an-based newspaper.

Forty-three relatives of the victims have arrived in Hanzhong, and 18 bodies have been identified, the newspaper reported.

Nine survivors are in stable condition in a local hospital in Hanzhong. The bus has been hoisted out of the reservoir.

According to the local police, the bus was proceeding at more than 70 kilometers per hour when the accident happened. Rainfall had made the road slippery and the driver did not slow down at a bend on the highway, which runs alongside the reservoir. The bus crashed through the barrier and plunged into the water.

The bus belongs to the Xi'an Tourism Group, which was not licensed for cross-province passenger transportation, according to a Chengdu-based newspaper.

Wu Dengchang, a vice governor of Shaanxi, said they have frozen the account of the company, and are implementing strict security check on all buses in the province.

Buses equipped with more than seven seats are banned from hitting on the road from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM, said Wu.

Local police are investigating the accident.

(Xinhua News Agency March 19, 2007)