Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed on Tuesday the deaths of five South Koreans in a recent tour bus crash in the U.S. state of Oregon that reportedly killed four others and injured a dozen others.

"Five of the nine killed in the charter bus in Oregon were Korean nationals and the other four held U.S. citizenship," the ministry said in a statement. Most of the nine victims were U.S. residents, it said.

Local news reports said that the charter bus was carrying about 40 people from Las Vegas to Vancouver, Canada, when it lost control on an icy highway and crashed around 10:30 a.m., Sunday (local time), in a rural area of eastern Oregon.

Most of the passengers aboard the bus were reportedly Korean nationals or naturalized U.S. or Canadian citizens born in South Korea because the company caters to Korean tourists. (Yonhap News)