TORONTO (Reuters) - A bus carrying Chinese tourists crashed on Monday on a highway near the Canadian capital of Ottawa, injuring 24 people, including four with life-threatening injuries, police said.

The Chinese Embassy said on Twitter that it was “very much concerned” about the condition of the injured passengers and was in contact with Canadian authorities.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that the bus was carrying 37 Chinese tourists when it crashed in the Prescott area of Ontario, some 90 kilometers (53 miles) south of Ottawa.

It veered off highway 401 and crashed into a rock embankment on the side of the road in an accident that did not involve other vehicles, provincial police spokeswoman Tina Hunt told Reuters.

Emergency crews arrived on the scene to find the bus in a ditch alongside the highway, she said.

At least two helicopters, a fixed-wing aircraft and land ambulance were sent to the scene, according to a spokesman for Ornge Air Ambulance.

The crash comes almost two months after Canada was shaken by bus a crash in a remote Saskatchewan town that killed 16 people, most of them members of a junior hockey team.