Taipei: At least 32 people were killed when a tour bus crashed on a highway near Taipei Tuesday night, with Taiwanese television footage showing the bus careening toward a road barrier at a highway curve before flipping on its side.

Forty-four people were in the bus, not the previously estimated 45, according to the latest figures from the local fire department.

Thirty were pronounced dead at the scene and two died at the hospital, the fire department said, adding that 12 people were still being treated in hospitals around Taipei, the capital.

Many of the injured were elderly, Taipei City Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-ji said on live local TV.

It was unclear what caused the crash. Local television showed a video of the bus shot from behind flipping onto its side and skidding toward the hillside after it hit a road barrier when negotiating a highway interchange curve.

Ambulances and fire trucks were lined up along the bend of the road as rescue workers used a crane to lift the battered bus from its wheels, after all the passengers were pulled from the wreckage.

"Prosecutors need to get on the site," said cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung on live TV.

The crash is the latest accident involving tour buses in Taiwan. Earlier this month, another Taiwanese tour bus carrying Chinese tourists crashed into a bridge in southern Taiwan, injuring some passengers.

It followed a grisly murder-suicide last year in which 24 Chinese tourists were killed after the driver set their moving bus on fire.