Seven people died, including five Dutch, after three vehicles collide in southern Peru

Seven people died, including five Dutch, after three vehicles collide in southern Peru

2010-12-03 06:03:08 GMT+7 (ICT)

PUNO, PERU (BNO NEWS) -- Seven people, including five foreigners, died on Wednesday after three vehicles collided in a highway in southern Peru, authorities said on Thursday.

Authorities announced that five of the killed were Dutch tourists. The accident took place near the Chaca Chaca town near the Bolivian border. In addition, 27 people were injured, 22 Dutch and 5 Belgians.

The accident took place after a trailer carrying cement from the Bolivia's company Yura collided front-to-front with a bus from Kontiki Tours which was transporting around 40 tourists from the Netherlands and Belgium. Another bus was also hit in the crash.

The tourists were heading to Bolivia to continue their South American tour. Representatives of the Dutch embassy arrived at the scene in order to identify their co-nationals and began the necessary paperwork to return the deceased who were aged between 60 and 86 years old.

The two other individuals killed were the drivers of each vehicle. Bolivian Freddy Farfan, 38, was driving the trailer while Ernesto Rios, 38, of Peru, was driving the tour bus. The other bus from the San Martin company did not suffer any casualty.

The cause of the accident has not been determined neither who was responsible for the fatal collision. In southern Peru, road accidents are very common due to bad condition of the buses, the lack of proper training fro drivers and the dangerous routes through the Andes.

In 2009, more than 3,000 people died in car accidents in Peru and about 50,000 were injured, according to state reports.

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