16 killed as passenger bus crashes on mountain road in Peru

International Desk: At least 16 passengers lost their lives when a passenger bus lost control on a mountain road in Peru and plunged into a ravine. Local authorities said the accident happened on Tuesday (May 14) in the mountainous region of Ayacucho in Peru. News from AFP.

According to the report, there were more than 40 passengers on the bus passing over the Andes. Ayacucho government official Wybar Vega said that 13 bodies have already been recovered. The work of recovering the bodies of the remaining three is going on. Due to bad weather and hail, it took time to recover the bodies from the crashed bus.

A statement from the Ministry of Health of Peru said that the accident happened on the Libertadores highway on the way from Lama to the city of Ayacucho on Tuesday morning. At that time the bus overturned and fell into a ditch. Before this, on April 30, at least 25 people died when a bus fell into a ditch in Cazarmaca Valley, located in the northern part of Peru.

According to data from the Ministry of Transportation of Peru, a total of 3 thousand 138 people have died in road accidents since 2023. According to the official statistics, 70 percent of these accidents occur due to the driver's mistakes or their physical fatigue.