A truck carrying fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations exploded and destroyed part of an elevated highway in China's Henan Province, killing several people, state media reported.

The blast sent vehicles plummeting 100 feet to the ground, state media said.

A 260-foot section of road was damaged, the BBC reported.

China National Radio said 26 people were killed, while the Xinhua News Agency reported only four deaths but said search and rescue efforts were continuing, The Associated Press reported.

Reuters

Rescuers look for survivors near the wreckage of vehicles after a truck carrying fireworks exploded and caused a bridge to partially collapse on the Lianhuo highway in Mianchi County, Henan Province on Friday.

The explosion happened early Friday on a major east-west highway in Mianchi county, about 55 miles west of Luoyang, the AP said.

Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed rescuers digging through rubble in the aftermath of the accident.

In 2006, a storeroom of fireworks exploded at a temple fair in Henan, killing 36 people and injuring dozens more, the Daily Telegraph said.

Thony Belizaire / AFP - Getty Images

A Haitian police officer on patrols Tuesday near the scene of an auto accident.

Updated at 5:30 p.m. ET: The death toll in the Haiti truck crash climbed to 29 Tuesday evening. Another 67 were injured, a Haitian official said.

Earlier: A truck loaded with rubble from Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake killed at least 26 people and injured 57 others after its driver lost control of the vehicle in a hilly area of the impoverished Caribbean nation's capital, authorities said Tuesday.

The accident came less than a week after the second anniversary of the quake that killed roughly 300,000 people and leveled much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

"Between 26 and 30 people have been killed and 57 injured. We are looking for the driver," Highway Police chief Will Dimanche said  after the accident in the Delmas district of the city late Monday.

"Witnesses say he (the driver) jumped from the truck after hitting the first obstacle, but we'll find him anyway," Dimanche said.

Plows past parked cars
The truck sped down a divided two-lane roadway and plowed past parked cars, motorcycles and mopeds.

There were no immediate reports about the cause of the accident, but speculation centered on brake failure in the rubble-laden vehicle.

Just over half of the piles of concrete, steel and other debris littering Port-au-Prince and its surrounding areas has been cleared since the earthquake that devastated the city on January 12, 2010.

The press office of President Michel Martelly issued a statement saying the leader went to the site of the crash, which was in front of the national television headquarters.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.