Salvage workers have retrieved four bodies and two of the four vehicles which plunged into a river after a bridge collapsed 10 days ago in south China's Guangdong Province, the Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

A section of the mile (1.6 km)-long bridge fell into the swollen Xijiang river, which feeds the Pearl River delta, after a sand-laden barge hit a pier on a foggy morning.

The bodies of a man and a woman were recovered from the river on Friday after workers hauled out a truck with a Guangdong-registered licence plate. The bodies of two missing road workers were recovered downstream last week.

Four vehicles and nine people were thrown into the river when the bridge collapsed. Salvage workers are still trying to recover two other missing trucks.

Initial rescue and identification was hampered by uncertainty over how many vehicles had been on the bridge when the accident occurred, and by fake licence plates on at least one vehicle.

Investigators said the collapse had nothing to do with the quality of construction of the bridge, which opened to traffic in 1988, Xinhua said.