At least 51 people were killed in Guatemala City on Monday when a bus crashed through a guard rail and drowned in a ravine, the rescue team said, in one of the years of the worst road accidents in Latin America, in the years.
The Municipal Fire Department said that the bodies of 51 people were recovered from the wreck of the bus, which was carrying more than 70 people when it crashed into a river from a bridge, which was contaminated in a river with contamination in a river Was contaminated.
Victor Gomez, spokesperson of Volunteer Firefighters Group who was involved in rescue attempt, confirmed that “there were 51 bodies in the provisional morgue.”
The rescue teams had already managed to evacuate 10 injured people from the debris.
Guatemele President Bernardo Arewalo expressed grief over the tragedy and declared an unspecified period of national mourning.
“Today is a difficult day for the Guatemelle nation,” he said.
The fire department said the driver lost control of the bus and hit several small vehicles, which was before the prefix.
The department’s Carlos Hernandez told reporters, “The bus continued to move, broke through a metal railing, and fell into a deep ravine about 20 meters (65 ft) until it reached the sewage-pleasant river. “
AFPTV images showed the lines of the firefighters, which passed through the bodies drawn from the merge water, which were filled with garbage, on the slope on the stretcher.
According to local media, the bus was traveling from the city of San Agustin Akasagustlan of the Department of L Progresso from about 90 kilometers (56 mi) in the northeast.
Communications Minister Miguel Angel Diaz said that an initial investigation showed that the bus was 30 years old, but still had a license to operate.
He said that the cause of the morning accident was still unknown and investigators were seeing whether the bus was overloaded with the bus passengers or not.
Dozens of deadly road accidents are common in Central and South America.
In January 2018, 52 people were killed in Peru when a bus fell from a rock on a beach north of the capital Lima.
In Brazil, in March 2015, 54 people were killed in a tourist bus accident in the southern state of Santa Katrina.
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