Ten people died instantly and about 50 others were injured when a speeding bus hit a tanker truck, then another bus on an expressway in the southern province of Guangdong early on Monday, the local government said.

The speeding bus, en route from Shenzhen to Nanning in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, rear-ended the truck at around 1:00 a.m. on an expressway in the coastal city of Zhanjiang, traffic police there said.

The bus then veered across the median of the expressway and crashed into an oncoming bus that was en route from Nanning to Zhuhai.

Police said the injured passengers were being treated at several hospitals.

Authorities have yet to identify the dead.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2008)