10 dead, dozens injured in Brazil tourist bus crash

RIO DE JANEIRO: Ten people died and dozens were injured Friday when a tourist bus crashed into a

highway pillar

in Brazil's southeastern

Sao Paulo state

, officials said.
The accident occurred at dawn in the

Itapetininga region

.
"There were 52 victims, of which 10 died on the scene," an official of the Public Security Secretariat (SSP) of Sao Paulo told AFP.

The injured were extracted by rescue teams and firefighters and taken to three hospitals in Itapetininga and neighboring Sorocaba.
Five of them had serious injuries.
An accident report drawn up by the state's transport department said the driver had reported a mechanical failure which caused him to lose control of the bus.