The minibus was on a curved and sloping road in the Buleleng district, which is on the northern side of the island, when the crash happened.

Five Chinese tourists -- three women, and two men -- died in the accident, while the driver and eight other passengers suffered minor injuries, the police said.

"The driver was unable to control the vehicle... the vehicle crashed into a farm, collided with a tree," local traffic police officer Bachtiar Arifin said, adding the crash was under investigation.

He said police informed the Chinese consulate about the crash, and the consulate was contacting families of the passengers involved.

Fatal traffic accidents are common in the Southeast Asian nation of 280 million people, where road rules are routinely ignored and vehicles are often poorly maintained.

In August 2022, at least ten people, including four young children, were killed and more than 20 were injured when a truck ploughed into a bus stop outside a school in a city adjacent to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.

Earlier in 2022, 16 people, including a child, were killed and more than a dozen others were injured when a truck descending a remote mountain in West Papua careened into a cliff and crashed.