LIMA: A bus trying to avoid an oncoming truck drove off a highway in a remote zone of southeastern Peru and tumbled into a river, killing at least 23 people, authorities said Saturday.
Local police Cmdr. Jorge Pastor told the area radio station that another 35 people were injured in the Friday crash on a stretch of highway between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado.
“The bus ended up nearly completely submerged in the river. That made the rescue brigade’s work difficult,” said police spokesman Linio Sanchez of the town of Urcos, in the tourist-magnet region of Cusco.
Officers said most of the passengers were traveling from Puerto Maldonado to Cusco to cast their ballots in Sunday’s presidential election. Voting is obligatory in Peru and those who do not participate can be fined.
The overnight bus departed from the city of Puerto Maldonado on Thursday and was carrying 56 passengers to the city of Cusco, some of whom were on their way to vote in Peru’s presidential election Sunday.
The bus went hurtling into the Mapacho river in a sparsely populated rural area.
A truck was thought to have cut in front of the bus causing it to swerve off the road, Sanchez said.
The injured were taken to hospitals in Cusco and a nearby town.
Fatal road accidents are common in Peru, in part because of lax traffic enforcement but also because of the Andean country’s challenging mountain terrain.
On Jan. 18 at least 16 people were killed and 10 injured when a bus plunged off a curvy mountain road into the Tarma river in the central region of Junin.
23 dead as Peru bus plunges into river
