'Inexperienced' bus driver arrested after killing 19 passengers in high-speed crash
'Inexperienced' bus driver arrested after killing 19 passengers in high-speed crash
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An “inexperienced” bus driver has been arrested after seemingly losing control and crashing at high speed, killing 19 people - including two children. Shocking pictures from the scene showed the bus, belonging to a firm known as Panamericana, lying on its roof by the side of the road. The vehicle was loaded with 27 people and heading from the Bolivian capital La Paz to the southern border town of Villazon at the time of the early morning crash.
Among the victims was a seven-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. Local police chief Wilson Flores said: “This terrible incident appears to have occurred because the driver was going too fast. “He has been arrested. he was very young, 24 years old.
“The bus roof crushed them. The bodies of the 19 people who died were recovered from underneath the vehicle.”. The bus overturned near the town of Atocha close to Bolivia’s southern border with Argentina. The victims are said to have been crushed in their seats. Another nine people were injured and taken to hospital.
An unconfirmed report said police were investigating whether the bus driver, who was also among the nine people hurt, had fallen asleep at the wheel. Last year a bus in Mexico’s central state of Zacatecas ploughed into a loose tractor trailer, killed 19 and injured six. A British tourist died and nearly 30 mostly other foreign holidaymakers were injured in a coach crash in Peru in October 2023.
The travellers were on their way back from a popular tourist destination called the Mountain of Seven Colours in the Peruvian Andes when the drama occurred. The man killed, said to be in his thirties, was reportedly crushed under the vehicle after it came off the road and rolled over several times before ending up on its side. The 28 people injured included at least one British national - a 35-year-old woman.
