QUITO – At least 12 people, including two babies, were killed and 26 others injured when a public transit bus plunged into a ravine early Sunday in Chimborazo, a province in Ecuador’s central Andean region, police said.

“Traffic accident in Cebadas Chimborazo 12 dead ... A total of 26 injured, driver fled the scene,” Quito police commander Juan Carlos Rueda said in a Twitter posting.

The accident happened around 2:30 a.m. on the Riobamba-Macas highway.

The bus, which was traveling from Macas, a city in the Amazon region, to the coastal city of Guayaquil, flipped over and rolled into a 150-meter (nearly 500-foot) ravine, the El Comercio newspaper reported.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, police said.