Nine people were killed and 33 injured in Colombia’s accident this Saturday when a passenger bus plunged into an abyss in the Santander department (northeast), police reported.

“A public passenger transport vehicle rolls over sideways and remains approximately 200 meters from its final position in relation to the main road,” explained police traffic controller Colonel Óscar Andrés Lamprea.

The accident killed 9 people and the 33 “injured” are being treated in care centers “with a reserved prognosis”.

The vehicle, belonging to the Expreso Brasilia company, was carrying 41 passengers from Cúcuta, the capital of Norte de Santander, to Valledupar, on the Atlantic coast, when it left the road this morning and rolled a few meters down a precipice at kilometer 58, in the section between Bucaramanga and the city of San Alberto.

Police are investigating the causes of the accident, which some hypothesize could be due to driver error or a technical malfunction in a tire.

It is the second serious accident this week on Colombian highways, since eight people were killed last Tuesday when a bus collided with a truck on a highway in the department of La Guajira, in the north of the country.

The victims of this other accident were all the occupants of a minibus traveling from Riohacha, the capital of La Guajira, to Santa Marta, the capital of the neighboring department of Magdalena, and was totally destroyed.