Fifteen people were killed and 25 injured in a freeway accident in Hunan Province, central China, on Monday.

The accident happened at around 7:00 p.m. at Chenzhou city on the north-south freeway connecting Beijing and Zhuhai city in south China's Guangdong Province, according to traffic police.

It was believed a bus heading north ran into the rear of a tanker, triggering a fire and an explosion which ignited three other motor vehicles already tangled in a previous road accident, said a police spokesperson.

The traffic on the Beijing-Zhuhai freeway was stopped temporarily because of the accident.

Vice Governor Liu Liwei led a group of public security, communications, work safety and environmental protection officials to the site to investigate the cause of the accident and handle the clean up, said a spokesperson for Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

All the injured are being treated in hospital.

(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2008)