Nine people were confirmed dead and 11 others were seriously injured when a bus veered off an expressway in east China's Jiangsu Province Friday night, local authorities said Saturday.

The bus, carrying 46 people from Nantong City in Jiangsu to Cangshan in the eastern Shandong Province, veered off the coastal expressway in Dafeng City at 9:12 p.m., the local government said in a press release.

Five passengers were killed at the scene and four others died later at hospital, it said.

Besides the 11 seriously injured, almost everyone else suffered slight injuries, the document said.