At least 12 people died and 16 others were injured after a bus plunged 200 meters into a ravine in Peru, said Peruvian National Police on Tuesday.

Authorities reported that though the accident occurred on Monday in the south Andean region of Cusco, they had only been able to confirm the number of deaths on Tuesday morning due to the region's remote location, some 1,151 kilometers from Lima.

According to police reports, the bus was carrying 28 passengers when it collided with another vehicle in the area known as Miska area on a freeway connecting the cities of Cusco and Santo Tomas de Chumbivilcas.

One of the surviving passengers, Antero Quispe, told local news that the crash was caused because the bus driver was speeding.

Bodies of the dead and injured were thrown out of the bus and scattered across the rugged terrain, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach them.

The injured were taken to the San Antonio de Lorena Hospital in Cusco, where a hundred people await information about their relatives.

Every year, Peru records traffic accidents of vehicles falling off cliffs or ravines in the mountainous Andean area.

In January of this year, at least 52 people were killed after a bus fell into a 400-meter deep ravine 48 kilometers north of Lima, and in February, another 44 people died after a bus went off the road in the southern Arequipa region.