Bus slides off ferry in southeastern China

A packed bus slid off a ferry into a river in southeastern China on Monday. Dozens are missing and at least one is dead, state media reported.

The bus was carrying up to 30 passengers, including children headed to summer school in a semi-rural part of Jiangxi province, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Six people were pulled from the river after the accident, five of whom survived, the report said. Search efforts were ongoing, it said.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the accident, which struck at about 11:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) on the Xinjiang River in Jiangxi's Yugan county.

Such accidents remain common in rural China, despite repeated attempts to boost safety.

On Sunday, a bus plunged off a mountain road in Guizhou province southwest of Jiangxi on Sunday, killing 12 people and injuring eight others, Xinhua said in a separate report.

The bus was carrying 20 people deep in the hills of Guizhou province when it crashed through a guardrail and into a 10-meter (33-foot) deep culvert on Sunday afternoon, the report said.

It said 11 people died at the scene and another died in a hospital.

The cause of the crash wasn't given and Xinhua said the driver remained in a coma. Such accidents are often blamed on poorly maintained over overloaded vehicles, along with speeding and exhausted and inattentive drivers.