LIMA, Peru — A double-decker overnight bus missed a bridge and plunged into a dry riverbed along the highway between Lake Titicaca and the Inca capital Cuzco on Wednesday, killing at least six people including an Irish tourist and the bus driver, police said.

Dr. Carlos Vega identified the deceased foreign traveller as a 21-year-old Irishman. Vega spoke by telephone from a clinic near the crash site in Urcos, 45 kilometres southeast of Cuzco.

Another 37 travellers, including six from Canada, were injured. The Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa said four Canadian citizens and two landed immigrants were among the injured. Two of the Canadians have been released from hospital. The department did not release information on the hometowns or identities of the injured.

Also among the injured were tourists from Israel, France, Germany and Britain.

Television images showed firefighters looking through the wreckage after rescuing the passengers.

The bus appeared to have missed a bridge and barrelled down the side of a 20-metre embankment, crushing its nose as it came to a halt on the rocky riverbed. Most of the windows were smashed.

The accident occurred around 4:30 a.m. local time at a bridge crossing the Cachimayo River in the Andes Mountains, near Urcos some 610 kilometres southeast of Lima, police officer Claudio Claros said by telephone from Urcos.

Investigators suspect bus driver, who died in the crash, either fell asleep or was speeding, although the weather was clear, Claros said.

Bus crashes are common in Peru, where bus drivers frequently speed and pass vehicles along blind mountain curves.