PERU: BUS CRASH IN POPULAR TOURIST SPOT KILLS 25 IN MOUNTAIN REGION, INVESTIGATION ONGOING. (PHOTO).

 Bus crash in popular tourist spot kills 25 in mountain region, investigation ongoing

A tourism bus in Peru skidded off the road and plummeted down a 650-foot slope, killing at least 25 people and injuring 17 others in a crash. 

"The area is difficult to access for the emergency services," Jhonny Rolando Valderrama, head of the highway protection division, told the AFP news agency. The cause of the crash remains unknown at this time.

Valderrama said the bus overturned and tumbled down the slope at around dawn and lamented that it was just the latest such incident to occur on the Los Libertadores highway in the Andes, according to Reuters. 

A police official later told state news agency Andina that 42 passengers were on the bus, meaning that police accounted for all passengers. Ground transport superintendent SUTRAN then issued a statement identifying Turismo Molina Union SAC as the owner of the bus and initiated an investigation into the company. 

Peru recorded over 3,000 deaths from more than 87,000 crashes, according to the AFP, with around 70% of crashes due to "human factors."

Another passenger bus fell into a ravine in northern Peru in January, killing 25 people and leaving many others injured. The bus in that incident belonged to Q’orianka Tours and had left the capital Lima and headed for the Tumbes region near Ecuador.

Peru’s prosecutor’s office blamed the January incident on reckless driving and speeding, which they said cause most of the accidents for buses in the country. Another issue arises from the slow response time to the scene, which is often disorganized and leads to more deaths. 

An incident in April killed 25 people after a bus crashed in the northern Cajamarca region, which marked the deadliest highway accident in Peru in two years, according to The Associated Press. 

A crash in September 2023 killed around two dozen people after a bus plummeted down a slope after veering off a mountain road in the northwest Ayacucho region. Another, more recent accident in May killed 13 people and injured 14 others after a bus rolled down a cliff in Ayacucho.