Many dead in Peru bus crash blaze



A bus and a petrol tanker have collided in western Peru, bursting into flames and killing at least 20 bus passengers.

The two vehicles crashed on a motorway some 165km (100 miles) south of the capital, Lima, police officials said.

There were around 30 passengers on the bus, AFP quoted officials as saying, adding that only "a very few" had escaped from the burning wreckage.

Peru's El Comercio newspaper reported that seven of eight survivors from the crash had sustained injuries.

A local TV reporter at the scene said the bus, owned by Costena, had been travelling from Lima to Pisco, several hundred kilometres to the south, when the accident happened in the Canete area.

Local residents said they heard a loud explosion and then saw flames leaping into the sky when the incident happened.