MEXICO CITY -- A passenger bus lost control and veered off a road and into a 75-foot-deep (25 meter-deep) gully in southern Mexico on Wednesday, killing as many as 27 passengers, an official said.

The crash occurred in the largely indigenous Mixteca region of the southern state of Oaxaca. The state's Interior Secretary Jesús Romero said that preliminary reports showed that 26 or 27 people had died in the crash.

Romero said the bus driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and plunged into the gully.

Photos distributed by police suggesting the bus had flipped, totally crushing the passenger compartment.