At least 48 people were killed Tuesday when a bus collided with a tractor trailer and plunged from the sliver of highway running along Peru's coastline.

Helicopters buzzed overhead to pluck six survivors from the wreckage and recover bodies strewn across the rocky beach about 100 metres below the highway. There were also three people missing from the 57 total passengers, The Associated Press reported.

The bus was completely destroyed in the collision in Pasamayo, about 75 kilometres north of Lima, with photographs showing massive damage to the front and a destroyed back end, presumably from the tumble down the cliff.

Locals christened the stretch of highway "The Devil's Curve" because of its proximity to the cliff and regular blankets of fog complicating navigation along its tight turns, where tractor trailers roar to and from the capital.

Numerous accidents have occurred at the site, the AP reported. Peru's roadways combine with unforgiving terrain to form a deadly mix; at least 37 people died in a three-bus accident involving a truck in 2015 further north along the coastal highway, and 51 Quechua indigenous were killed when their bus fell off a cliff into a river in 2013.

The roadways are so perilous that the US State Department prohibits diplomatic staff from travelling by motor vehicle outside Lima at night, especially as bus passengers, because of threats of armed bandits and poor road conditions.