This is the worst accident since the beginning of the year in this country. At least 25 people died in the fall of a bus in a ravine in Bolivia, authorities said Monday. "We are recovering the bodies, we have 25 dead and 24 wounded at the moment, who have been transferred to different institutions," police chief Fernando Rojas said, quoted by the Bolivian news agency ANF .
As the bus was trying to overtake a truck in the night from Sunday to Monday, it collided head-on with another vehicle, "resulting in a loss of control and falling into a ravine some 200 meters away," said Yuri Calderon, the chief of the Bolivian police, said in a press briefing. The initial toll was 17, Yuri Calderon said.
Accidents in January and February
The accident occurred 90 km north of La Paz, while the bus was heading towards the town of Rurrenabaque, in the Bolivian Amazon. Images from the Unitel local television showed the rescuers moving along the slopes of the ravine amid thick vegetation, pulling the victims up with ropes. At the bottom, the carcass of the vehicle appeared completely broken down.
President Evo Morales, who is visiting Argentina, expressed his condolences on Twitter. "We are very sad after the accident on the road between La Paz and Yungas, our condolences to the families of the deceased," he wrote.
On the weekend of January 19 and 20, 22 people died in a head-on collision and another 12 in the fall of a bus in a ravine, and an accident on February 18 between a bus and a truck killed 24 people.