CARACAS, June 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – At least 18 people were killed Sunday in a
bus accident in a rural area of western Venezuela, police said.
“Fourteen deaths were reported at the scene of the accident, 33 injured
were transferred to the hospital in Villa del Rosario, where four of them
died,” police said in a report seen by AFP.
The accident occurred in a rural area of Zulia state which borders
Colombia.
According to a preliminary investigation, a tire burst while the bus was
traveling “at an excessive speed.”
The bus was carrying 58 passengers, according to witnesses interviewed by
the local Panorama newspaper.
Venezuelan roads are often in a deplorable state due to lack of
maintenance, and passenger vehicles are frequently very dilapidated.
Around 10,600 people died in road accidents in Venezuela in 2016,
according to World Health Organization estimates in its 2018 global road
safety report.
Its road fatality rate of 33.7 per 100,000 inhabitants is among the worst
in the world.