LA PAZ: Nine people were killed and another 24 injured after a bus packed with foreign tourists crashed in southwest Bolivia on Saturday, police said.

   Authorities said the bus, returning from a visit to Bolivia's famed Salar de Uyuni salt flats, overturned shortly before dawn.

   The bus, which had set out from Uyuni, stopped in Potosi en route to La Paz, "was carrying about 35 people mostly foreigners such as Egyptians, Italians and Brazilians," Oruro transit police officer Arturo Gutierrez told Radio Erbol.

   Two Germans and a Chilean were among those seriously injured, he added.

   San Juan de Dios Hospital in Oruro said some people were treated and released, but did not immediately provide numbers or nationalities.

  AFP/QH