A TEENAGE backpacker from Oxford has been killed in a coach crash in a remote region of Peru.

The 19-year-old girl was travelling on a bus with two friends from the county between the Peruvian capital Lima and the town of Cusco when the accident happened on Saturday morning.

The girls, all schoolfriends, are believed to have left the UK two weeks ago to begin a gap year trip. None has yet been named.

Four others - two Peruvians, an Israeli and a French national - are believed to have died in the accident and many more were injured.

The bus crashed about eight hours into its journey from Lima to Cusco, a city in the central region of the country close to the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu - a popular tourist and backpacker destination.

Early reports received by British consulate staff in Lima indicated that no other vehicles were involved and the bus had left the road while negotiating a corner on a mountain road.

The accident is being investigated by local police in Peru and British consulate officials have also visited the scene.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed the three Britons had been involved in the crash. She said the families of all three girls had been contacted and relatives had travelled to Peru over the weekend.

The spokesman added: "We sent staff to where the crash happened and a member of our staff remains with the two girls who survived.

"She accompanied them back to Lima and met with family members who flew over to Peru. As far as we are aware the two girls only had minor injuries but they are obviously traumatised."

She said consulate staff were helping to make travel arrangements for the girls' return to Britain.