At least 14 people have died and four more injured when a bus traveling to the city of Juliaca in Peru’s Puno department lost control and fell 100 meters off a cliff into the waters of Lake Titicaca, state news agency Andina reported.
“We’ve been able to remove from the waters, with the support of the population and some boats, 14 people who were killed, among them a 7-month-old baby,” police officer Zócimo Contreras was quoted as saying.
According to RPP radio station, the injured have been taken to a hospital in Juliaca.
The bus reportedly belonged to the San Román company and was traveling from Cuzco to Juliaca when the accident occurred early Monday morning in the district of Conima.
By late Monday afternoon, rescue teams were still working on removing victims from the bus which remained some 70 meters below the surface of the lake.
Five more people were killed in a separate accident on Sunday when a car crashed into a truck less than 100 miles from Lima on a central highway to Peru’s central Junín region, Spanish news agency Efe reported.
Peru’s ombudsman – the Defensoría del Pueblo – reported last March that in 2009 there were more than 86,000 traffic accidents in the country. The accidents killed 3,243 people and injured more than 48,000 others.
