Two people died on the spot and 37 others were injured when a bus overturned in northeast China's Jilin Province Saturday, the local traffic police said Sunday.

The bus carrying 39 people veered off State Highway 302 while trying to shun an incoming truck at 1:40 p.m. It toppled and fell into a roadside ditch in the city of Jiaohe, a spokesman with the city's traffic police department said.

The passengers were all tourists from Beijing and were en route to Changbai Mountain, a major tourist destination in the province that borders the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he said.

The spokesman said the passengers were of one company and the trip was sponsored by their company in Beijing, but did not give the company's name.

Two of them were seriously injured and their lives were still at risk Sunday morning, said doctors at the People's Hospital in Jiaohe, where most of the injured are being treated.

The cause of the accident is being investigated.

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2006)