Pilgrims die in Argentina bus crash

It is believed the driver lost control of the bus

At least 50 people, many of them pilgrims, have been killed and 25 injured in northern Argentina after a bus they were travelling in plunged into a ravine.

The crash happened around 2200 local time (0100 GMT Monday), in Catamarca, about 1,100 kilometres (675 miles) north-west of the capital, Buenos Aires, police said.

The driver is thought to have lost control of the vehicle, causing it to veer off a precipice and fall around 30 metres (100 feet), local officials told the Reuters news agency.

It is thought that several children were among the dead, many of whom were sitting on their parents' laps.

"The driver lost control of the vehicle because of a failure of the brakes," Julio Diaz, Undersecretary of Security in the Tucuman province told local radio, according to the Reuters news agency.

"It was a big bus...it is completely destroyed" .

Efforts to aid the wounded and retrieve the bodies of the victims have been hampered by difficult mountainous conditions, police and firefighters told French news agency AFP.

Many of the passengers were travelling from Tucuman to San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, a region popular with pilgrims because of several well-known churches established there.