Two people have been confirmed dead after a coach overturned on an expressway in northwest China's Gansu Province Wednesday night, rescuers said.

The coach broke through the guardrail on a section of an expressway between Jiayuguan and Jiuquan and fell onto the roadbed at about 9 p.m. when it was en route from Urumqi to Lanzhou with 50 people aboard. It has partly disintegrated.

All the other passegners have been sent to hospital for examination and treatment and the number of injuried is not immediately known.

Local traffic police authorities have sent a work group to the scene to deal with the aftermath and to investigate the accident.