Bus crash in Ecuador kills five British travellers
Five young British travellers were killed when their bus collided with a lorry while on a volunteer and language tour in Ecuador.
They were on almost three weeks into a 15-week ‘Inca and Amazon adventure’ with Warwick-based tour company VentureCo, which specialises in gap year trips.
Some of the survivors spoke at a press conference in the country’s capital Quito, saying they hoped the tragic accident would not put people off from taking a gap year.
Travel guide Sarah Howard, from Cheshire, was also killed in the crash.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband offered their sympathy to the families of the victims.
According to BBC reports, Ecuadorian police said the driver of a lorry carrying a load of sand had crashed into the bus, and is believed to have fled the scene.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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