Dozens killed when bus plunges into a gulch in southern Mexico

July 5, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC / Source: The Associated Press

By The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — A passenger bus lost control and veered off a road and into a 75-foot-deep gully in southern Mexico on Wednesday, killing as many as 27 passengers, an official said.

The crash occurred in the largely Indigenous Mixteca region of the southern state of Oaxaca. The state’s Interior Secretary Jesús Romero said that preliminary reports showed that 26 or 27 people had died in the crash.

This handout picture released by the Tlaxiaco Municiapl Police shows the remains of a bus after it plummeted into a ravine in the outskirts of Magdalena PeÃ±asco, Oaxaca state, Mexico on July 5, 2023. At least 25 people were killed in Mexico when a passenger bus plummeted into a ravine Wednesday in the southern state of Oaxaca, police said. "The preliminary toll is 25 people dead and 17 seriously injured," a police officer told AFP by telephone, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. — Authorities work at the site of the of a bus crash after it plummeted into a ravine in the largely indigenous Mixteca region of the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico on July 5, 2023.Tlaxiaco Municipal Police/AFP via Getty Images

Romero said the bus driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and plunged into the gully.

Photos distributed by police suggested the bus had flipped, totally crushing the passenger compartment.