Rescuers have finished pulling 51 bodies from the wreckage of a bus that tumbled over a cliff in Peru in one of the deadliest vehicle accidents in the nation's history.
Authorities on Wednesday said nearly everyone on board was killed on Tuesday after the passenger bus collided with a tractor trailer on a narrow stretch of highway known as the "Devil's Curve".
Firefighters and police worked for more than 24 hours to recover the remains, tying bodies onto stretchers and pulling them up the cliff with ropes.
The bus landed on a rocky, isolated beach north of Lima with no road access.
A group of emergency personnel working to rescue victims after a passenger bus plunged off the Pan-American Highway North, about 45 kilometers from Lima. Source: AAP
Six survivors were taken to hospitals, including one man who told doctors he escaped harm by jumping out of a window moments before the bus fell into the abyss.
"The patient is totally stable with just some cuts and a fracture to his arm," Dr Victor Viru, director of the Chancay Hospital, told a local television station.
The crash's death toll is equal to that of a 2013 accident that is the deadliest in recent Peruvian history.
In that crash, 51 Quechua Indians were killed when the makeshift bus they were travelling in fell off a cliff and into a river.
Deadly wrecks with large numbers of victims occur with relative frequency along Peru's roadways, with more than 2,600 people killed in 2016.
The crashes often involve buses carrying mostly poor Peruvians travelling outside major cities.
Transportation experts blame a combination of bad road conditions and little enforcement of traffic safety regulations.
President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski announced on Wednesday that he was ordering the nation's Ministry of Transportation to begin working on plans to expand a nearby road farther from the cliff so buses no longer have to use the "Devil's Curve".
The road near the Pacific contains 52 curves in a stretch of 22 kilometres bordered by a low wall just 50 centimetres high.
The road is frequently covered in mist and has been the site of numerous accidents.
In a statement issued through the Roman Catholic Church in Peru, Pope Francis, who is due to visit Peru later this month, offered his condolences and prayers for "the eternal rest of the victims".
