Seventeen people including a two-year-old child and five teenagers have been killed after a bus full of students, teachers and parents plunged more than 20 meters off a cliffside road.
The students had been on a school trip before the vehicle – which carried 57 people – collided head on with a van and veered off the road and into a ravine in Peru, according to the state government.
Jorge Sanchez, director of the regional directorate of San Martin said earlier: ‘We have 11 deceased as a result of the accident.
‘Among them, there are five 17-year-old schoolchildren and a two-year-old child.’
Authorities have since revised the death toll to 17.
‘The bus, which fell in a ravine more than 20 meters (65 feet) deep… left 17 dead and several people injured,’ the state government said in an update.
The bus was carrying a group of schoolchildren, their families and teachers from the town of Piura, in the country’s north, to the Amazonian department of San Martin.
It crashed while driving along a road in the province of Moyobamba, in the San Marin region.
According to local media, the crash occurred while the high school students were on a class trip.
Seventeen people including a two-year-old child and five teenagers have been killed after a bus full of students, teachers and parents plunged more than 20 meters off a cliffside road. Pictured: A crowd gathers in the aftermath of the crash
The students had been on a school trip before the vehicle – which carried 57 people – collided head on with a van and veered off the road and into a ravine in Peru, according to the state government. Pictured: Emergency services attend the scene
The bus was carrying a group of schoolchildren, their families and teachers from the town of Piura, in the country’s north, to the Amazonian department of San Martin
The Andean country has a high incidence of bus accidents, with 3,138 deaths recorded in traffic accidents in 2023, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
Road accidents, in particular deadly bus crashes, are frequent in the South American country, especially those involving drivers going at high speeds on poorly maintained mountain roads.
Last year 23 people were killed in Peru after a bus crashed in the northern part of the country, careening down a 1,000-foot (300-meter) ravine.
The crash occurred on the remote PE-12A national highway in the Cusca district of the northern Andean province of Corongo.
‘The road is in terrible condition… those are the consequences,’ Carlos Pinedo, mayor of the nearby town of Yanac, told local media.
‘We should not wait for more deaths,’ he added.
The bus crashed while driving along a road in the province of Moyobamba, in the San Marin region
According to local media, the crash occurred while the high school students were on a class trip
In September 2023 , 25 bus passengers died in an accident in the south of the country.
Not even a month later, in August 2023, another accident in the same region killed 13, leaving five seriously injured.
Furthermore, the most recent World Health Organisation data estimates that there were 4,414 road traffic related deaths in Peru in 2019.
The public prosecutor’s office has said that speeding and reckless driving are the main causes of accidents in Peru.