A commercial van slammed into a truck in north-west China today, killing nine people and bringing the overall death toll to 56 in three big accidents on the country’s notoriously dangerous roads over the past two days.

Thirty six people died when a double-decker bus rammed into a tanker loaded with highly-flammable methanol in northern China early today, causing both vehicles to burst into flames.

A bus swerving to avoid an oil truck ran off a highway in northern China and plunged into a ravine, killing 27 people, the state-run Xinhua News Agency and local officials said today.