KUNMING - Ten people died and 38 others were injured when a cement tanker crashed into a bus Thursday night in Southwest China's Yunnan province, the local government said.

The accident happened at 11:33 pm on a highway in Yunxian county of Lancang city, the city government's press office said in a statement Friday.

The cement tanker, with a license plate from the neighboring Sichuan province, veered off the road after colliding into a coach bus that was carrying 47 people, including two drivers, it said.

The bus, en route from Gengma county to the provincial capital Kunming, overturned on the road, the document said.

It said nine people were confirmed dead at the scene and another one died later in hospital, but did not identify the victims.

The government had launched an investigation and the injured people had been landed in hospitals, the document said.