All the dead were maintenance workers, Xinhua said. The accident also caused a pileup of five vehicles, it said.
Fourteen people died on the scene and two died at a hospital, a woman from the Jiangxi provincial traffic police said. She did not give her name.
Xinhua said rescue work was under way and all the injured were being treated in hospitals.
It said the maintenance vehicle belonged to the highway administration of the Jiangxi Communications Department, and the truck was from central Henan province.
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