It is the latest in a series of road accidents that have killed 45 people in the past three weeks.

A bus accident in southern Ecuador has killed at least 10 people, including three children, according to rescue workers.

The vehicle was on its way to Loja when it crashed and overturned 21km south of the city of Cuenca around 04:30am local time (09:30 GMT) on Saturday.

Firefighters worked for more than two hours to recover bodies from the bus and tend to the wounded, Cuenca’s voluntary fire department said in a statement on Twitter.

“Our personnel recovered 10 bodies (seven adults and three children) and moved five of the 16 injured in the bus accident,” the statement read.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

#ACTUALIZACIÓN Nuestro personal recuperó 10 cuerpos sin vida (7 adultos y 3 menores) y trasladó a 5 de los 16 heridos del accidente de bus en el Km 21 de vía #Cuenca – Loja, sector Gañadel. pic.twitter.com/2YCfQEh0tB — Bomberos Cuenca (@Bomberos_Cuenca) September 1, 2018

TRANSLATION: #UPDATE Our personnel recovered 10 bodies (7 adults and 3 children) and transferred five of the 16 injured from the bus accident at km 21 of the Cuenca – Loja road in the Ganadel sector.

The crash is the latest in a series of traffic accidents in Ecuador, where such incidents are among the leading causes of death.

On August 14, a Colombian bus carrying 40 passengers crashed on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador’s capital, killing 23 people, including Colombians and Venezuelans.

Two days earlier, 12 people were killed and 30 injured when a bus carrying fans of Barcelona SC, a major football club in Ecuador, ran off the highway and flipped.

According to the National Transit Agency, about six people died daily on Ecuador’s roads last year.