Tibet tour bus with 40 people falls into valley

AP Photo XIN801, XIN802, XIN804, XIN803, XIN805

BEIJING - A tour bus carrying about 40 people fell off a 10-meter (30-foot) cliff in southwest China's mountainous region of Tibet on Saturday, causing some fatalities, the country's official news agency reported.

Casualty details were not immediately known, but the Xinhua News Agency said bodies and survivors were pulled out of the bus, with the injured rushed to hospitals in the regional capital of Lhasa.

The bus careened after it crashed in a pileup involving a sports utility vehicle and a pickup truck on a state road in the county of Nyemo in southern Tibet, Xinhua said.

Photos released by Xinhua showed the bus lying upside down as rescuers worked to pull people out.

Tourism has been on the rise in the scenic Tibetan Plateau, where mountain roads are often treacherous and can be particularly dangerous in the summer rainy season.

The road where Saturday's pileup occurred had a massive landslide earlier in the week, covering a 280-meter (yard) stretch of the road in debris, according to China's weather services.