In Peru 21 people have been killed and 38 have been seriously injured when a bus went off the road and plunged directly into a ravine in southeastern Andes Mountains.

The accident took place on Monday in the Ayacucho province.

According to The Associated Press, the bus fell into a 3,280-foot deep ravine.

Col. Orfiles Bravo informed the local media that the bus was reduced to "a mass of twisted metal," and that the cause of the deadly accident was as of yet unknown.

This latest accident, the second deadly road accident in Peru in a week, is eerily familiar.

Last Monday, 38 people died and 84 were injured when three buses and a truck collided on a main coastal highway.

The bus, which had been carrying a group from the Christian organization Worldwide Missionary Movement, took place in the pre-dawn hours on the Pan American Highway near Huarmey, an area which is about 200 miles north of the capital city of Lima.

As reported in Reuters, Oscar Gonzalez, the man in charge of the rescue operation, said, "Preliminary investigations indicate the driver that crossed into the opposite lane likely fell asleep."

Road traffic accidents are a common phenomena in Peru.

As reported in the BBC, the World Health Organization said 2,514 deaths reported on the roads in in Peru in 2010.

In 2013, 51 people were killed when a makeshift bus fell into a ravine.

According to Peru This Week, Elvira Moscoso, the head of Peru’s transportation body Sutran, spoke of the plight of the Peruvian road victims in 2013, saying, “There is a relationship between the victims and how vulnerable they are economically, ethnically and socially speaking. For them it’s more difficult to find justice, it’s very similar to the victims of our violence in the 80s and 90s.”