Nine people died and 23 were injured when a bus veered off a country road near Dingxi City in northwest China's Gansu Province on Sunday, local police reported Monday.

The 29-seat bus was carrying 32 people, including an eight-month-old baby, from Kangjiaji Village in Lintao County to the county seat, when it plunged down a slope into a deep ditch at 9:40 AM on Sunday.

The accident killed four people on the spot. Five others died later at hospital. The other passengers were all injured, seven of them seriously.

Fortunately the baby and two other kids, aged six and eight, survived the tragedy with slight injuries, according to Gansu traffic police.

An investigation is underway.

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2007)