Seven people have been confirmed dead after a bus collided with a car and veered off an expressway in Shanxi Province on Saturday, only two days ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, a long-awaited holiday regarded as an occasion for family reunions.

The accident happened at around 4:40 p.m. on a section of Taijiu Highway, which links the provincial capital of Taiyuan and the village of Jiuguan in Pingding county in the city of Yangquan, according to a spokesman with the Yangquan city government.

The bus carrying 21 passengers smashed through a barrier after crashing into the car carrying four people, then tumbled onto a road beneath the highway, said the spokesman.

Three people aboard the bus and another three in the car died at the scene, he said.

Rescue efforts are underway and the exact number of casualties is still being calculated.

When the tragedy occurred, the bus was en route to Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province from Taiyuan.

The collision was the latest in a string of deadly road accidents that has cast shadows over the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which usually spurs the world's largest annual human migration.

This winter, snow has hampered people's journeys home and increased road safety risks in Shanxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces as well as Chongqing Municipality.

Early Friday, snow blanketed most parts of Shanxi, forcing closures of a dozen highways. As of noon on Saturday, most of the closed highways had been opened, said He Jianzhong, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport (MOT).

More than 1,100 people and over 280 snowplows worked to remove snow and ice from the slippery highways in Shanxi, according to the provincial highway management bureau.

The National Meteorological Center on Saturday maintained a blizzard alert for heavy snow in some parts of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces until Sunday, and issued traffic warnings as people rush home for the holiday.

According to statistics from the MOT, 83.73 million people traveled on the road on Saturday alone, a record high since the festival travel season started on Jan. 8.

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