Four dead as bus falls into ravine in Colombia

Bogota, Nov 4 (IANS/EFE) A bus carrying tourists plunged into a ravine early Sunday in Tolima, a province in central Colombia, killing four people and injuring 30 others, officials said.

The accident was the second involving a bus this weekend in the Andean nation.

The bus went off the road and into a 100-metre ravine in the Alto de las Palmas sector on the highway that links the cities of Melgar and Icononzo.

The area is one of the main summer vacation destinations in central Colombia and has been swamped with thousands of tourists for the All Saints Day holiday.

"As of now, we know that there are four dead and 30 injured, two of whom sustained serious injuries, but the authorities are still at the accident scene because we do not know if there are more victims," a Tolima emergency management office spokesman said.

The injured were taken to Louis Pasteur Hospital in Melgar.

The cause of the accident has not been determined, but National Police transit and transportation director Gen. Carlos Mena said the driver may have been speeding.

A bus accident killed five people and injured 25 others in Betulia, a town in the northwestern province of Antioquia, Saturday.

"The accidents, according to the theory we have based on the eyewitness reports we received in both cases, were apparently caused by speeding," Mena told reporters.

--IANS/EFE

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