Venezuela bus accident kills 18, 33 injured

CARACAS: At least 18 people were killed on 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 oten 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.

Meanwhile, thousands of Venezuelans crossed into Peru despite a crackdown on migrants without passports or visas meant to stem the flood of immigration from their crisis-stricken nation, as many lacking those documents filed asylum requests instead.

Venezuela’s economic collapse under President Nicolas Maduro has unleashed the biggest migratory crisis in recent Latin American history, forcing countries like Peru — a developing nation of 32 million people — to grapple with an unprecedented surge in immigration.

Under the new rules imposed on Saturday, mi grants must have passport sand visas before coming to Peru — closing a door to many Venezuelans who cannot afford the fees needed to acquire them.

However, asylum seekers are not required to have passports under international law, providing poor Venezuelans with a way around the changes.

Desperate Venezuelans rushed to reach Peru before the crackdown took effect. A record 4,700 asylum claims were filed in Peru on Friday, part of more than 8,000 Venezuelans who entered the country that day, according to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.