At least 24 people have died and another 19 have been injured after a bus collided with another vehicle at high speed and overturned on a highway near Ecuador's capital.
The Colombian-registered bus was travelling to Quito when it hit a smaller vehicle in an area known as dead man's curve at about 3am local time on Tuesday, Ecuadorean authorities said.
Quito district security secretary Juan Zapata told Colombia's Blu Radio that Colombian and Venezuelan nationals were among the dead.
Two minors travelling in the smaller vehicle were also killed.
A small fleet of ambulances and emergency workers rushed to the crash site about two hours from Quito before dawn.
They found the severely wrecked bus overturned and several homes adjacent to the highway damaged and strewn with metal debris.
The crash is the second such tragedy to take place in Ecuador in the past three days.
On Sunday, 12 people were killed and another 30 injured when a bus carrying fans of the Ecuadorean football team Barcelona SC overturned on a highway after a game.
On Monday, relatives of the victims bid farewell to their loved ones at a collective wake held at Barcelona's stadium in Guayaquil.
Police are still investigating the causes of the earlier crash, but some eyewitnesses told local media that the bus carrying members of the Sur Oscura fan club that accompanies Barcelona to all its away games was seen trying to overtake other vehicles shortly before the crash.
