A tanker truck carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) veered off a highway on Wednesday in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, killing two people aboard and causing a gas leak that closed the highway for more than 15 hours, the local government said.

The truck carrying 20 tons of LPG veered off State Highway 314 at 7:20 PM in Turpan Prefecture. It was en route from Korla to the provincial capital Urumqi and its number plate indicated it was from the eastern Anhui Province.

The leaking gas forced local authorities to close the highway on Wednesday night and traffic to Urumqi was still stopped on Thursday afternoon.

The site of the accident in the Gobi Desert is uninhabited and the nearest residential area is more than 20 kilometers away.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2007)