View of the crash site after a bus plunged off a cliff in Matucana, east from Lima on August 31, 2021. AFP FILE PHOTO
LIMA — At least 13 people died and another five were seriously injured when a bus traveling through Peru’s mountainous Andes plunged off the road on Saturday, authorities said.
The crash occurred in the morning after the bus, which was carrying around 50 people, departed from the Andean town of Vilcashuaman en route to capital Lima.
Near the town of Huancavelica, in the southeast, the vehicle overturned and fell 200 meters (656 feet).
“We are reporting thirteen dead and five seriously injured after a bus crashed and fell into a precipice on the Los Libertadores highway,” an officer from the Huaytara district police station in Huancavelica told AFP.
The injured were transferred to a hospital in the city of Pisco.
“The bodies are scattered. The firefighters and police are carrying out the rescue operation,” Huaytara health chief Alvino Rojas told state broadcaster TVPeru.
Accidents frequently occur along Peruvian highways due to speeding, poor road conditions, lack of signage and poor enforcement of traffic rules.
The World Health Organization estimated 4,414 road fatalities in Peru in 2019, or 13.6 per 100,000 inhabitants.