Updated 8:14 AM EST, Wed November 16, 2011
Five people were reported to have died at the crash scene Wednesday morning, with the other victims confirmed dead later.
Beijing (CNN) -- Eighteen children and two adults died after an overloaded school bus collided with a coal truck Wednesday in northwest China's Gansu province, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The nine-seater minibus was involved in a head-on collision with the truck in Yulinzi township in Zhengning county, in the Qingyang city area, an official from the city's work safety bureau told Xinhua.
The bureau blamed overloading, saying in a statement the bus had 64 people on board at the time. Most of them were children from Yulinzi's Little Doctor Kindergarten, Xinhua said.
Five people, including the bus driver, were reported to have died at the scene Wednesday morning, with the others confirmed dead later.
Another 45 people, most of them children, were injured and are being treated in hospital, Xinhua quotes the bureau as saying.