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 p.m.
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 p.m., a rescuer with the county's traffic police authority said.
Rescue work lasted until 10:30 p.m., 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.
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