All 12 people in a van that plowed into the back of a stationary truck on Sunday afternoon in Yuechi county, Guang'an, Sichuan province, have died, as the last two survivors died in a hospital later that day.

"The cause of the accident is still under investigation," said Huang Jinsheng, deputy chief of the Sichuan Provincial Work Safety Bureau, who is in charge of the investigation group of the Sichuan provincial government.

At around 1:30 pm on Sunday afternoon, the van ran into the truck. Ten people on the van were killed instantly.

Rescuers clean up the wreckage of a van, which rear-ended a truck in Guang'an, Sichuan province, on Sunday. All 12 people in the van were killed in the accident. Tan Chunchu / for China Daily

"The two people who were severely injured died in a hospital," said Wang Hong, director of the Guang'an city government information office.

Wang said that victims included the van driver, Tan Qingju, 36; his wife, Chen Rongying, 36; and their two daughters, aged 11 and 7.

"The owner, Tan Qingju, had recently purchased the van, and it had a temporary permit," Wang said.

The other eight victims came from three families.

All the victims were locals of Chashan village, Wuxi county, in neighboring Chongqing municipality.

The adult victims worked on furniture production in the suburbs of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. Their children had spent the summer vacation with their parents.

"Because school begins in early September, their parents had sent them home on the van," Wang said.

Of the victims, seven were 8 to 16 years old, he said.

According to the truck driver, one of the front tires of his truck burst in Yuechi on the way from Chengdu to Dazhu county in Sichuan.

"As I went to the Yuechi county seat to get help, my wife was sitting alone in the truck parked by the road. As she felt the truck shake at around 1:30 pm, she left the cab and found a van had hit the back of the truck," he told the West China Metropolis Daily.

As the front of the van had smashed in about 1 meter, passengers could not help themselves. It was only after firefighters from Guang'an came were all the passengers removed.

"Ten passengers were confirmed dead on the spot. One survivor died soon after arriving in the Guang'an City People's Hospital, and the other died that evening, although medics from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University joined in the rescue operation, and he received a transfusion of 4,000 ml of blood," Wang said.

He said the weather was fine and there were no obstacles on the road at the time of the accident.

huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn