JINAN, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- A school bus ran into a crowd of students at the gate of a middle school in Tai'an City in east China's Shandong Province on Tuesday morning, resulting in approximately a dozen casualties, according to local authorities of Dongping County.

The accident occurred after 7 a.m. when the bus, customized for transporting students, collided with students standing at the roadside.

The cause of the accident is not yet known.