A South Korean official has died after falling from a four-story hotel in China’s northeastern city of Jian.

Choi Doo-yeong was confirmed dead early Sunday after police reached the scene. 

The South Korean official had been sent by the government in Seoul to China in the wake of a deadly bus incident in Jian on July 1, when ten South Korean passengers were killed after the vehicle went off a bridge. The bus was transporting over two dozen South Korean civil servants.

The reason for the fall is under investigation.

"It has not been confirmed whether Choi jumped from the hotel to his death or lost his footing and fell," said an official at the South Korean Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, whose name was not mentioned in the report.

Choi was the president of the state-run Local Government Officials' Development Institute. According to China's Xinhua news agency, he accompanied Chung Chae-gun, the vice minister at the South Korean ministry, on the trip to China.

The South Korean civil servants who died in the crash were on a training program organized by the institute.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying that Choi "felt a heavy responsibility for the tragic accident."

China's Jian sits across the Yalu River from North Korea in Jilin Province and is a popular destination for South Koreans visiting China.

XLS/HSN/SS