A bus carrying Argentine border patrol officers crashed into a ravine in the northern province of Salta on Monday, killing 42 people, while nine were being treated for injuries, provincial emergency official Francisco Marinaro told local television.
“We have 42 dead so far,” he said in a TV interview from the scene, where an overturned bus was shown, swarmed with emergency workers.
Nine people were rescued and being treated in local clinics. “The bus fell about 18 meters (59 feet),” Marinaro said.
The vehicle was part of a three-bus convoy carrying officers of Argentina’s gendarmerie, which patrols the country’s borders. Salta borders Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay.
The cause of the pre dawn accident, in which the bus carrying 60 police officers aboard plunged some 15 meters (50 feet) into a dry riverbed, was unclear, said Gustavo Solis, mayor of Rosario de la Frontera in northern Salta province.
For reasons still unknown, the driver lost control of the bus as it started to cross a bridge and it tumbled into the ravine, police said in a statement.
Solis said the road where the accident occurred is known to be in poor condition.