At least 12 people have been killed and another 27 injured when a bus plunged down a ravine in southern Ecuador, emergency management officials say.
Sources told EFE that the accident occurred around 4:25 am on Tuesday on the Balsas-Machala highway, and that the interprovincial bus covered the route between Yantzaza and Guayaquil.
Why the bus carrying some 40 passengers crashed is not yet known, according to the source.
The El Oro provincial government reported that, at present, the casualty count stands at "27 people injured and 12 deceased (9 men and 3 women)".
The institution said that the bus flipped over, went off the road and plunged into a ravine.
The accident occurred two days after another interprovincial bus turned over on the highway between the Ecuadorian cities of Cuenca and Quito, leaving five people dead and 23 injured.
Bus accidents are frequent in Ecuador, where 23 passengers were killed last August, including Colombians, Venezuelans and Ecuadorians, in a tourist bus accident some 30 kilometres from Quito.
Australian Associated Press
