Eleven people, including eight children, were killed after their overloaded school bus crashed into a pond in Central China the other day.

The bus was returning home from a local kindergarten in a small, mountainous village near Xiangtan city in Hunan province before it fell into a pond, state media reports said.

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The school bus was travelling along a narrow road that did not have barriers on its sides.

The vehicle was apparently a makeshift minivan which can only fit seven people.

The school bus was pulled out from the pond where the bodies of the children and the driver were found inside. An hour later, the two teachers were found in the surrounding area of the pond.

The victims' families told local news that school buses across the region are often overloaded. Local authorities said that a thorough investigation is on its way.

School transport has long been a sensitive issue in China where a series of accidents happen at an alarming rate.

In 2011, 19 children died when another makeshift school bus collided head on with a truck. The bus has been converted from a nine-seater van but apparently, it was carrying 64 people inside at the time of the accident.

Beijing is implementing a strict uniform standard for school bus management starting this September where this policy will be carried out across all the city's primary schools.

In Jiangxi province, a new, similar local regulation requires all transport of kindergarten and primary schools to be undertaken by professional school buses.

After a several fatal crashes in the past years, China built a nationwide campaign along with a long-awaited regulation in 2012 to increase school bus transport safety where they strongly implement the use of professional vehicles for school transport.

This regulation also requires the local government to provide safe and professional school transport especially for those whose homes are far away from their schools. 

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