A bus lies on its side on a road near the Eldhraun lava field, about 250 kilometres east of Reykjavik, Iceland, December 27, 2017. Image Courtesy: VoA News via AP

REYKJAVIK: A coach carrying Chinese tourists visiting Iceland overturned on Wednesday, killing one person and leaving 12 others seriously injured, local authorities said.

The 44 passengers in the coach were all Chinese nationals, a police spokesman told AFP.

The most seriously injured were taken by helicopter to the capital Reykjavik, around 250 kilometres (340 miles) from the scene of the accident in Kirkjubaejarklaustur.

It happened in the heart of the Icelandic winter with harsh weather conditions and icy roads.

The coach crashed into the back of a car carrying Lithuanian tourists, before going off the road and overturning, authorities said in a statement.

Tourism is a growing sector in Iceland, which welcomed a record number of 1.8 million visitors in 2016.

The number of tourists coming from China has tripled between 2014 and 2016 when 67,00O visited the small volcanic island nation of 335,000.