Eleven young children - five South Korean and six Chinese - were killed along with their driver when their bus crashed and burst in to flames in a tunnel in China's eastern Shandong province on Tuesday (May 9), state media said.

The bus had been transporting the children, all aged between three and six years old, to an international kindergarten in Weihai, a city across the Yellow Sea from South Korea, state broadcaster CCTV said, adding that a teacher also suffered severe injuries.

It released footage from the accident site of fire in tunnel and black smoke billowing out of the tunnel's entrance.

The South Korean Consulate in the Shandong provincial capital of Qinghao had earlier said that ten South Korean died in the accident. Consular officers had been sent to the site, it said.