CHANGSHA -- Three people were killed and another was injured in a highway pileup in Central China's Hunan province on Friday.

The accident struck at around 8:20 am on the Hunan's Changde section of a highway linking Inner Mongolia in north China with Guangdong Province in the south, according to the provincial expressway traffic police bureau.

The victims were travelling in a van. Two of them were killed on the spot while the other died in hospital.

One of the vehicles was a tanker containing phosphoric acid, according to the provincial expressway management bureau.

Traffic resumed at around 6 pm.