Reading News 4U: 48 killed in Peru bus accident
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Rescue workers and police work at the scene after a bus crashed with a truck and careened off a cliff along a sharply curving highway north of Lima, Peru, January 2, 2018. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
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“It’s very sad for us as a country to suffer an accident of this magnitude,” Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a statement.
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48 killed in Peru bus accident
LIMA, PERU (AP): The bus carrying 57 people was headed to Peru’s capital when
it was struck by a tractor trailer shortly before noon and plunged down the
slope.
At least 48 people died when a bus tumbled down a cliff onto
a rocky beach Tuesday along a narrow stretch of highway known as the “Devil’s
Curve,” Peruvian police and fire officials said.
The bus carrying 57 people was headed to Peru’s capital when
it was struck by a tractor trailer shortly before noon and plunged down the
slope, said Claudia Espinoza with Peru’s voluntary firefighter brigade.
The blue bus came to rest upside down on a strip of shore
next to the Pacific, the lifeless bodies of passengers strewn among the rocks.
“It’s very sad for us as a country to suffer an accident of
this magnitude,” Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a statement.
Rescuers had to struggle to rescue survivors and recover the
dead from the hard-to-reach area in Pasamayo, about 70 km north of Lima.
No road leads directly to the beach, complicating rescue
efforts, Espinoza said. Police and firefighters used helicopters to transport
six survivors with serious injuries to nearby hospitals. Col. Dino Escudero
said 48 people were confirmed dead and at least three were missing.
Transportation Minister Bruno Giuffra said initial reports
indicated both vehicles involved were traveling at a high rate of speed at the
time of the crash. Calls by The Associated Press to the company that owns the
bus were not immediately returned.
As rescue operations continued late into the night,
authorities announced a suspect had been detained for allegedly robbing belongings
of victims.
Traffic accidents are common along Peru’s roadways, with
more than 2,600 people killed in 2016. More than three dozen died when three
buses and a truck collided in 2015 on the main costal highway. Twenty people
were killed in November when a bus plunged off a bridge into a river in the
southern Andes.
The nation’s deadliest traffic crash on record happened in
2013 when a makeshift bus carrying 51 Quechua Indians back from a party in
southeastern Peru fell off a cliff into a river, killing everyone on board.
Espinoza said the passengers in Tuesday’s crash included
many returning to Lima after celebrating the New Year’s holiday with family
outside the city.
The highway is known as the “Devil’s Curve” because it is
narrow, frequently shrouded in mist and curves along a cliff that has seen
numerous accidents. Police said the bus fell an estimated 80 meters.
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