Guatemala City (dpa) - At least 35 people were killed in Guatemala when a bus travelling on the Inter-American highway near the border with Mexico plunged into a ravine a day earlier, according to reports on Monday.
A spokesman for the Municipal Firefighters of the La Mesilla region in northwestern Huehuetenango province, Rony Veliz, said the bus was carrying about 40 people. Three were rescued.
One of the people rescued was a small child who only spoke native Mayan, he said.
Heavy rain and the risk of a landslide forced rescue teams to call of efforts to find survivors late Sunday, Veliz said.
Witnesses said that the bus practically sank into a large river, the Selegua, which runs through the bottom of the ravine.
dpa am mm
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Received by NewsEdge Insight: 09/30/2002 11:37:00