Backhoe falls on bus, kills 23

At least 23 people died on Wednesday and 36 were injured when a backhoe fell on a school bus in afternoon rush-hour traffic north of Bogota, Colombia. PHOTO: EPA

A construction crew's backhoe tumbled down a hillside onto a school bus on the highway below, killing 21 children and two adults and injuring 36 others, officials said.

The 45-tonne earth mover was being driven along a section of road higher up the hill when it rolled off a ledge and plunged about 20m before crushing the bus on the highway below, said Claudia Cubillos, a spokeswoman for the Bogota Health Ministry, which oversees rescue efforts.

The bus was taking 7- to 12-year-old students from Agustiniano School home in the capital's middle-class Suba district during the Wednesday afternoon rush hour. Traffic behind the wreck was backed up for several kilometers.

About a hundred emergency workers and police used heavy machinery to try to clear the mangled wreckage and get to the children trapped inside.

Police struggled to hold back families desperate to find out if their children were among the victims.

Laura Ortiz, a travel monitor at the school, said she was supposed to have ridden the bus but asked a friend to fill in because she got tied up in a meeting. She fears that her son was on board.

``I am looking for my son ... I don't know where he is right now,'' a tearful Ortiz told RCN television.

Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzon sped to the scene of the accident by motorbike to show solidarity with the victims and their families.

``It is profoundly painful. We are united behind the families and have asked the attorney general's office to fully explain the causes of the accident,'' Garzon told reporters.

Police spokesman Sargent Alberto Cantillo said it was not immediately clear whether the two adult victims were traveling inside the bus. The bus driver survived unharmed, while the backhoe's driver was in critical condition.

Preliminary findings indicated the backhoe's brakes failed and the driver lost control of the vehicle, Cantillo said. He declined further comment pending the results of an investigation.

It was the deadliest road accident in the capital's history. In 1997, 18 people were killed in a bus collision.

On average, nearly 700 people die every year in traffic accidents in Bogota, though more than half of them are pedestrians.