At least 32 passengers have died when a bus plunged off a cliff in Peru. The casualties include two children, and more than 20 were injured.

Officials said that it is the country's third multiple-victim transport accident in four days, Aljazeera reported. Tuesday's bus accident happened on a narrow stretch of the Carretera Central road, some 60 kilometers east of the capital Lima.

Police commander Cesar Cervantes confirmed the number of fatalities, including a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl.

The bus was carrying 63 passengers at the time of the accident. Local newspapers in Peru reported that witnesses said they saw the bus colliding with a hill before losing control and plunging into a ravine of more than 200 meters, Mirror reported.

One of the passengers, who survived the crash, had to be rushed to a hospital due to an injury. Clinton Bacilio, 24, was traveling with his wife, Luz Tineo.

Bacilio said he remembers that the bus crashed and kept moving. He noted that they decided to hold on to the seat in case the bus suddenly overturned.

Police said they believe that the bus was traveling at "high speed." The accident remains under investigation, according to a Voice of America News report. This has been the second accident of a bus plunging from a road in Peru in a matter of days.

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Other Bus Accidents in Peru

A bus transporting contract mining workers at MMG's Las Bambas copper mine was also among the traffic accidents in Peru in just a week. It had killed 16 people and injured two.

The company said the authorities were already investigating the cause of the accident and expressed its willingness to cooperate.

On Sunday, 22 people died when two boats collided on the Amazon river in Peru. An undetermined number of people remain missing.

On June 29, a bus accident had also occurred in southern Peru, killing 27 miners, while 16 others were injured on the road in the Andes.

The Ares Mining Company noted that the bus was headed from a pit near an archeological site to the city of Arequipa.

Traffic Accidents in Peru

In Latin America, Peru has the most dangerous roads in the region, with one of the highest premature death rates of 15.9 per 100 inhabitants, according to a World Resources Institute report.

The cultural capital of Peru, Arequipa was noted to have seen 320 traffic deaths and 1,081 people injured over three years, according to an EMBARQ Andino 2007-2009 study.

Dr. Joel Collazos, Strategy and Traffic Safety head for Peru's National Ministry of Health, said that Arequipa is Peru's second-highest region for the number of accidents.

Collazos noted that infrastructure in Peru is a big factor in car accidents. He also said the problem lies primarily in poor road signage and construction, including the lack of adequate road safety education.

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This article is owned by Latin Post

Written by: Mary Webber

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