At least 23 people died and 27 were injured yesterday when a bus swerved off a rutted road and plunged into a deep gorge in Peru's central Andes, in the fourth deadly bus accident this week.
The bus from the capital, Lima, was carrying locals along a potholed road some 300 miles north of Lima near the central Andean city of Huaraz.
"There are at least 23 people dead. The bus came off the rutted road and fell into the 500-metre-deep gorge," said a senior police officer who declined to be named. The exact cause of the accident was not known, he said.
It brought the week's death toll from bus accidents to 46, after at least 23 people died and dozens were injured on Monday in three other crashes along the coastal Pan-American Highway.
Hundreds of people die in bus crashes every year in Peru because of bad roads, poorly maintained vehicles and errors in judgment by drivers in treacherous weather conditions. Drivers involved in accidents are rarely prosecuted.