La Paz, Bolivia—Two passenger buses collided Saturday on a highway in southern Bolivia, leaving at least 37 people dead including four minors, police said, in the country’s worst bus accident to date this year.
“So far we have 37 confirmed deaths,” Colonel Wilson Flores told Agence France Presse (AFP) of the crash near the city of Uyuni in the department of Potosi.
Another 41 people were injured and transported to hospitals, police said in a later update, raising the toll from 30.
Among the victims were at least two foreigners: an 80-year-old Peruvian woman and a three-year-old German girl. The other three deceased minors were aged 13, 15 and 17.
The accident occurred on a narrow two-way road early Saturday.
One of the buses was heading to the city of Oruro, the scene this weekend of the Oruro Carnival, one of the largest festivals in Latin America that attracts tens of thousands of people.
It is still unclear what caused the accident, but police said that one of the buses had veered into the opposite lane.
Officials also said one of the drivers, who survived the crash in grave condition, had “alcohol breath,” so a blood test was performed.
Bolivia’s winding mountain roads are notoriously deadly.
Road accidents kill an average of 1,400 people every year in the country of about 12 million inhabitants, according to government data.
Saturday’s accident comes less than two weeks after at least 30 people were killed when a passenger bus plunged into an 800-meter-deep ravine in southern Bolivia between the cities of Potosi and Oruro.
In January, another nineteen people were killed when a bus careened off a road, also near Potosi.
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Publish date : 2025-03-01 11:38:00
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