At least 32 people were killed on Monday when a coach fell from a bridge down into a 70-meter- deep ravine, 140 km northeast of Guatemala, according to news reaching Mexico City.

The coach was traveling through Chiantla, a region that is home to mainly indigenous people, when it fell from the Los Calambres Bridge. Initial reports said that 20 people had died, but rescue workers later found another 12 bodies.

Rescue workers had to cut through the roof of the vehicle to free six people who were trapped but still alive, and to retrieve bodies from the vehicle.

The country's National Civil Police said that the bus had been traveling too fast, and that the driver and the person taking fares both appeared to have been drunk.

The bus's fall into the ravine trapped several of the passengers, and one woman who was freed from the wreckage of the vehicle and taken to Chiantla Hospital died shortly after arriving in the emergency room.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2006)