A passenger bus that may have been overcrowded with Christmas Eve travelers plunged into a ravine in the high Andes of southern Peru on Thursday, killing at least 40 people, police said.
As many as 60 people were aboard when the bus traveling between Arequipa, Peru’s second-largest city, and the town of Santo Tomas, near Cusco, veered off the road and tumbled 200m down a mountainside, police captain Juan Suarez said.
“There are 40 dead at the moment and I don’t have the exact number of wounded, there are about 10,” Suarez said, adding that the crash occurred early Thursday about 1,100km from the capital Lima.
Local news reports put the toll from the crash at 41 people dead and 21 wounded, and that the company which owned the bus had operated without a license since last year.
Highway Police General Enrique Medri told reporters that “there were reports of overcrowding of passengers,” with a travel crush common on Christmas Eve.
He said as many as 60 passengers were on board.
El Commercio newspaper said on its Web site that highway patrol officials confirmed that transport company Guapo Lindo had its license revoked because it had been operating routes illegally.
Suarez said the bus left Arequipa late on Wednesday and had been traveling to Santo Tomas, a peasant village in Chumbivilca province, when it crashed.
Edilberto Tenquipa of the Espinar fire company near the crash site said police and fire brigades were at the scene transferring the wounded to hospital, but that rescue efforts were difficult.
“The rains that fell this morning and a possible mechanical failure may have caused the crash,” Tenquipa told RPP radio.
He said eight critically injured survivors had been evacuated to a provincial hospital, while another 10 were taken to district hospitals with less serious injuries.
Peru’s public transport sector suffers from a lack of regulation, and deadly accidents are common.
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