Three people were killed and 34 others injured, including a woman from the Republic of the Congo, after a bus plunged off an elevated expressway and into a lake Wednesday morning in east China's Jiangxi Province, local traffic police said.

The accident took place at about 4 AM near Fengcheng City, when the bus burst through the guardrail and plummeted into Yaohu Lake, a spokesman with the provincial traffic police authorities said.

The bus, traveling from Dongguan in southern Guangdong Province to Wuxi in eastern Jiangsu Province, was carrying 37 people when the accident occurred, the spokesman said.

The injured, including two in serious condition, were rushed to hospital, he said.

The 35-year-old Congolese woman, identified as Yondou Sylvie Mireiloe, suffered minor injuries in her chest during the accident, he said.

Yondou Sylvie Mireiloe praised the medical care she had received in the hospital, saying staff had made her "feel at home."

Latest reports from the hospital said the condition of the two seriously injured people had improved.

The cause of the accident is being investigated.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2007)