TAIYUAN - Eight people were confirmed dead and five others were injured in an expressway pileup involving a heavy truck and several cars Tuesday in North China's Shanxi Province, police said early Wednesday.

The truck, failing to brake in time, rear-ended the cars that had pulled over near the Renyi toll station of Lingshi county on a pivotal expressway linking Beijing and the southwestern city of Kunming, at around 5 pm.

The truck driver had apparently failed to notice a traffic ban on the Lingshi section of the expressway after a tanker caught fire around 4:10 pm, a rescuer with the county's traffic police authority said.

Rescue work lasted until 10:30 pm, when seven people were found dead. Another passenger died later in hospital.

The five injured were in stable condition, Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau said in a press release Wednesday morning.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.