YANGON: Fourteen people were killed and 33 injured Wednesday when a passenger bus plunged off the side of a mountain in western Myanmar, police said.

The vehicle was travelling from Yangon to Thandwe in Rakhine state when it crashed, the Myanmar Police Force said on its Facebook page.

It said brake failure was the suspected cause. There were no reports of any foreigners on board.

Road traffic accidents are common in Myanmar, whose transport network is in poor condition owing to decades of underinvestment by the junta which ruled the country for almost half a century until early 2011.

AFP 231150 GMT JAN 13