LIMA, PERU: Ten people were treated for burns after a man doused a woman with gasoline and set her alight inside a public bus in the Peruvian capital Lima, firefighters said.

Witnesses to the incident late Tuesday said the man approached the woman aboard the bus, spoke to her briefly, doused her with fuel and set her on fire.

The attack caused panic aboard the bus in the capital's Miraflores district, as passengers stumbled out the doors or threw themselves through the bus windows, witnesses told Peru21 newspaper. The driver used a fire extinguisher to save the victim.

The attacker escaped in the confusion.

Peru's ministry for women described the incident as an "attempted feminicide" and said it was providing assistance to the victim.

"A team of specialists is in the hospital to provide care to the woman, a victim of attempted feminicide," the women's ministry said in a statement.

According to the Organization of American States' Observatory on Citizen Security, Peru has Latin America's second-highest rate of violence against women after Bolivia.

The 10 injured passengers were treated for burns in the city's Loayza hospital.

Miraflores mayor Jorge Munoz said on Twitter he was "dismayed by the reprehensible act committed by a coward a few minutes ago against a woman, by setting her on fire when she was on a bus."

He said local authorities were putting themselves at the disposal of the police so that the attacker is caught "and punished with the full weight of the law." </s> At least 44 people died in Peru on Wednesday when a bus hurtled some 100 metres into a ravine in the mountainous south in the country’s second major bus crash this year, a local official said.

“According to a report from the Peruvian National Police, there are 44 confirmed deaths as of now,” Yamila Osorio, the governor of the Arequipa region, wrote on Twitter.

The bus was carrying some 45 passengers, according to operator Rey Latino, but police said the figure was likely higher because additional passengers boarded along the route and did not appear in the initial register.

The crash occurred on a curve on the Panamericana Sur highway in the Ocona district. Road accidents are common in Peru, where roads are considered unsafe and bus drivers lack training.

“My condolences to the relatives of the victims of the transit accident in Arequipa,” President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski wrote on Twitter. “We have taken all steps to provide immediate rescue support and transfer victims to the closest health centres so they can be attended immediately.”

At least 48 people died in early January when a bus collided with a truck and careened off a cliff near the area of Pasamayo on the Pacific coast. </s> LIMA – At least seven people died and more than 50 sustained injuries on Saturday when a bus fell into a ravine in the central Peruvian region of Huanuco, according to Peru’s National Emergency Operations Center.

Rescue teams formed of police and firefighters arrived at the site of the accident and helped evacuate those injured to hospitals around Huanuco.

The bus was estimated to be carrying more than 60 people including the driver and co-driver.

It left the city of Pucallpa, in the eastern region of Ucayali, and destined for Tingo Maria, around 155 miles west.

Police said that for unknown reasons, the coach plunged into a ravine 150 meters deep while traveling along the Federico Basadre highway.

More than 100 people have been killed in three major bus accidents in the South American country. </s> LIMA, Peru — At least 48 people were killed Tuesday when a bus tumbled down a cliff onto a rocky beach along a narrow stretch of highway known as the “Devil’s Curve,” Peruvian police and fire officials said.

The bus was carrying 57 passengers to Lima, Peru’s capital, when it was struck by a tractor-trailer shortly before noon and plunged down the slope, said Claudia Espinoza, who is with Peru’s voluntary firefighter brigade.

The bus landed upside-down on a strip of shoreline next to the Pacific, the bodies of its passengers strewn among the rocks.

“It’s very sad for us as a country to suffer an accident of this magnitude,” President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a statement.

Rescuers had to struggle to help survivors and recover the dead from the hard-to-reach area in Pasamayo, about 43 miles north of Lima.
In Lima, Peru, a 36-year-old man gets on a public transport bus and sets fire to the passengers, after spraying them with gasoline, leaving 10 people injured. The most affected, a 22-year-old young woman, was seriously injured and believed to be the target of the attack.