Bolivian ‘Highway of Death’ Claims 9 More Lives in Rocky SUV Accident
Friday , April 25, 2008
LA PAZ, Bolivia —
A packed SUV collided with a group of cyclists on Bolivia’s “Highway
of Death” on Thursday, killing nine people — including a British man
who was the second foreign tourist to die this week along the
notorious road.
The accident took place just minutes after the cyclists began their
tour on a paved section near a 15,400-foot Andean pass, said Lt. Col.
Agusto Angulo, head of the La Paz transit police accident division.
A Toyota Land Cruiser carrying a driver and 12 passengers struck the
group, killing 22-year-old Tom Austin, Angulo said.
The vehicle then left the road and rolled 300 feet down a rocky
embankment, killing eight people inside, Erbol radio reported.
British cyclists Daniel Roberts, 23, and James Marshall, 22, and five
passengers in the SUV were injured, Erbol said. The British Embassy
later confirmed the riders’ identities but did not disclose more
information.
Angulo suggested that the cyclists may have crowded into the
vehicle’s lane.
But Mercedes Solis, a lawyer for the parent company of tour operator
Downhill Madness, insisted that the cyclists were riding on the
shoulder.
The highway east from La Paz — the world’s highest capital city —
winds dramatically down the face of the Andes, dropping 11,800 feet
in just 40 miles.
The narrow, largely dirt track earned its macabre nickname for the
frequency with which Bolivian buses would plunge off its 3,300-foot
cliffs, killing hundreds a year until a new paved highway opened 2007.
But the old route’s stunning vistas and hairpin turns now draw an
estimated 25,000 thrill-seeking mountain bikers from around the
world. At least 13 cyclists have died on the road in the past 10
years.
On Monday, Kenneth Mitchell, 56, of Fullerton, California, died when
he tumbled from his bicycle and fell over a cliff along the highway.
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