Four people died and another two were injured when an overloaded truck plunged into a valley in east China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday morning, local authorities said.

The accident occurred at around 8:40 a.m. when the truck loaded with flagstone board went down a slope, hit a bridge railing and plunged into an eight-meter-deep valley, a Leqing municipal traffic police department official said.

Three people in the carriage and the wife of the consignor sitting on the passenger seat died at the scene. The consignor, surnamed Huang, suffered bone fractures and the driver had hand injuries, he said.

The truck, with a load capacity of 1 ton, carried around 5 tons of flagstone board. It went on the road at 4 a.m. to escape traffic police.

Overloading and malfunctioning brakes were blamed for the accident, the official said.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2008)