- Vehicle runs off a mountainous road on the way to popular historic town of Luang Prabang
Thirteen Chinese tourists were killed when their bus ran off a mountain road in Laos on Monday.
The Chinese embassy in Vientiane said there were 44 Chinese on the bus at the time and 31 were injured, two of them severely.
The Laotian bus driver and tour guide sustained minor injuries.
The crash occurred as the vehicle was heading downhill about 40km (25 miles) from the historic town of Luang Prabang on Monday afternoon, state news agency Xinhua quoted a witness as saying.
The embassy said that in addition to its staff, workers from Chinese businesses in the country were sent to help with the rescue effects.
Some Chinese military doctors who were in Laos on a joint humanitarian exercise were sent by helicopter to Luang Prabang to treat the injured.
The embassy said the rescue was hampered by transport and communication problems in the mountainous area.
The visitors were from the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu and on a tour organised by the Nanjing Jinling Business International Travel Service, Jiangsu TV reported.
Most of the people in the group were in their fifties and sixties.
The embassy warned Chinese tourists to be wary of travelling by bus in mountainous areas in Laos and to assess road and vehicle conditions before any trip.
State broadcaster CCTV quoted one frequent visitor to Luang Prabang as saying: "The scenery along the road is beautiful, but road conditions are bad."
The number of Chinese visitors to Laos has soared in recent years, up from 200,000 in 2012, to 639,000 in 2017 and 800,000 last year.
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