At least 13 killed in Peruvian bus crash

LIMA: At least 13 people died and another five were seriously injured when a bus traveling through Peru´s mountainous Andes plunged off the road on Saturday, authorities said.

The crash occurred in the morning after the bus, which was carrying around 50 people, departed from the Andean town of Vilcashuaman en route to capital Lima. Near the town of Huancavelica, in the southeast, the vehicle overturned and fell 200 meters.

“We are reporting thirteen dead and five seriously injured after a bus crashed and fell into a precipice on the Los Libertadores highway,” an officer from the Huaytara district police station in Huancavelica told AFP. The injured were transferred to a hospital in the city of Pisco. “The bodies are scattered. The firefighters and police are carrying out the rescue operation,” Huaytara health chief Alvino Rojas told state broadcaster TVPeru.