Nineteen of the 24 victims in a fatal tourist bus crash in Ecuador on Tuesday were Colombian, the government confirmed on Wednesday. The crash just outside Quito also left 22 people injured.
Ecuadoran authorities had already said on Tuesday that most of the victims were Colombian, with others from Venezuela.
Five victims have been identified so far, Colombia’s Attorney General’s office said in a statement.
“Once all the bodies have been identified,” they will be returned to Colombia, the statement added.
Another 12 of the injured are also Colombian but “out of danger,” the foreign ministry said.
The bus, which had foreign license plates, overturned and crashed into three houses after a collision with an all-terrain vehicle.
Three of the four Ecuadorans in the all-terrain vehicle were among the dead, which included three children.
Colombia’s Transport Ministry had said on Tuesday that the bus was not authorized to carry tourists.
Traffic accidents are among the leading causes of death in Ecuador. According to the watchdog group Justicia Vial, on average seven people are killed and some 80 people injured each day in traffic accidents.
And 96 percent of those accidents are due to human error, according to the group’s figures.
On Sunday, 12 people were killed and 30 injured when a bus carrying fans of Barcelona SC, Ecuador’s most popular football club based in Guayaquil, ran off the highway and flipped.
