Guatemala City: In a tragic incident, at least 50 people lost their lives as the bus they were travelling veered off a highway bridge into a polluted ravine in Guatemala City. The bus plunged approximately 20 meters from Puente Belice, a highway bridge that crosses over a road and creek.
Guatemala City Mayor Ricardo Quinonez said that emergency services had been deployed while traffic police worked on establishing alternate routes in the affected area. Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo declared three days of national mourning and deployed the country’s army and disaster agency to assist response efforts.
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The bus was traveling to Guatemala City from the town of San Agustin Acasaguastlan in El Progreso department, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) to the northeast.
Road accidents leading to dozens of fatalities are common in Central and South America. In January 2018, 52 people were killed in Peru when a bus fell off a cliff onto a beach north of the capital Lima. In Brazil, 54 people were killed in March 2015 in a tourist bus crash in the southern state of Santa Catarina.