A motor tricycle overturned on a mountain path Sunday afternoon in a Hengren Manchus Autonomous County in northeast China's Liaoning Province, leaving 20 dead and four injured.

Local police said that all on board, including 22 women and one man, were farmers on their way home from picking potherb.

The accident happened at about 5:30 PM Sunday when Shi Shujun, the 40-year-old driver, lost control of the brake after stepping on it too long and making it hot, a local source said.

The vehicle then slammed onto nearby rocks along the slope before overturning, leaving 19 dead at the scene, one dead in the hospital, and the other four injured. The driver's condition was not immediately available.

The provincial governor Zhang Wenyue and officials with the departments of public security, communications, health and safety supervision went to the scene for a joint investigation.

In another accident in western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region nine people were killed after a long-distance bus collided head-on with a coal-laden lorry early on Monday.

The bus, equipped with 40 bunk beds, but with 48 people aboard, had left from Urumqi, the regional capital, traveling westward on highway 218, heading for Nileke in Ili, said local sources.

The collision took place shortly after the bus climbed over the Tianshan Mountain Range at about 7 AM on Monday. All nine dead were passengers of the bus, including two children. Eleven people were also seriously injured in the accident and are reported to be in a stable condition at a local hospital.

The conditions of the both the bus and the lorry driver are unknown.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2007)