A bus traveling from the Peruvian capital of Lima to the Amazon region overturned on a highway in the Andes Mountains, leaving at least 18 people dead and 48 injured, authorities said Friday. The double-decker bus belonging to the company “Expreso Molina Lider Internacional” went off the road and fell down a slope in the district of Palca, Junin region, Junin’s health director Clifor Curipaco told reporters.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the accident. Videos broadcast on local television showed the bus split in two, while firefighters and police tried to rescue the injured. It was not the first fatal bus accident in 2025, another bus fell into a river on January 3, leaving six people dead and 32 injured.

A study by the Attorney General’s Office found that driver recklessness and excessive speed are the main causes of accidents in Peru.

Road transportation is poorly monitored by authorities in Peru, and emergency assistance is so slow and disorganized.

In 2024, there were approximately 3,173 deaths as a result of traffic accidents in the South American country, according to official data from the Death Information System.

Last September, a bus carrying tourists from Machu Picchu veered off a steep embankment, leaving dozens injured.

The vehicle dropped around 50 feet after the driver lost control while navigating a fog-shrouded mountain road in the Andes.

A year earlier, in 2022, four tourists died and 15 others were injured when a minibus returning from the same site plunged 330 feet down a cliff.

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