Two senior doctors sent by the Ministry of Health arrived in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji Wednesday afternoon to help save 18 Taiwanese tourists injured in Monday's fatal traffic accident.

They are Li Jingsheng, a neurosurgery expert from Beijing Tiantan Hospital, and Song Feiqiang, a cerebral surgery expert from Beijing Anzhen Hospital.

They will join the first two groups of medical experts from Yanbian prefecture and Jilin Province to help treat the injured people, said Jin Chengmin, deputy director of the health bureau of the Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Yanbian, Jilin Province.

Twenty-four family members of the 18 Taiwanese tourists are expected to arrive in Yanji, capital of Yanbian prefecture, Wednesday night.

The injured tourists, including a couple who were in a critical condition, have been transferred to the Yanbian Hospital, said Wei Jiuping, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of Yanbian prefecture.

Wang Ying, head of the People's Hospital of Wangqing County, said 69-year-old Yen Wenhsiong suffered compound injuries while his 60-year-old wife, Yang Suiying, suffered fractures.

Before the transfer, all the injured received treatment at the People's Hospital, where Yen had undergone surgery, said Wang.

Jin said the Yanbian Hospital had briefly reported a shortage of type A blood after it received the tourists.

Local health authorities sent a message to local residents via the media. By Wednesday noon, 59 local residents had donated blood, some of which was given to the injured tourists.

The traffic accident occurred at 9:40 a.m. on Monday on a highway in Wangqing County when the 20-member Taiwanese tourist group was traveling from Heilongjiang Province to Jilin. Their bus overturned and plunged into a river on the 51-km Laosong Highway.

Two Taiwanese women and the bus driver from the Chinese mainland were killed. The dead tourists were 66-year-old Lee Lin Ching-miao and Leu Hsiu-ching, 62. The other 18 tourists were all injured.

The tourist group was on the second leg of a ten-day tour through the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2006)