Nine people were confirmed dead with four others in a critical condition after a bus fell off a cliff in central China's Hunan Province on Wednesday.

A minibus carrying 18 people veered off a steep mountain road and fell down a 87-meter cliff in Fenghuang County in western Hunan at 11:30 AM. Seven people died at the scene, with two others dying later in hospital.

The local traffic police authority revealed that the bus driver and his son were among the dead.

Sources with the county hospital confirmed that nine other people were injured in the accident, including a two year-old girl. Four of them remain in critical condition.

At least half of the victims were migrants from the neighboring Guizhou Guangxi and Fujian Provinces.

Preliminary police investigations have found that the bus driver had been driving too close to the edge of the cliff.

(Xinhua News Agency May 10, 2007)