A cargo truck jammed with people who appeared to be Central American migrants rolled over and crashed into a pedestrian bridge over on a highway in southern Mexico on Thursday, killing at least 49 people and injuring nearly five dozen others, authorities reported.
Luis Manuel Moreno, the head of the Chiapas state civil defence office, said a preliminary estimate listed 49 dead and 58 injured. He said about 21 of the injured had serious wounds and were taken to local hospitals.
The crash occurred on a highway leading toward the Chiapas state capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Photos from the scene showed victims strewn across the pavement and inside the truck's freight compartment.
Later, rescue workers arranged the dead in rows of white plastic body bags, side by side, on the asphalt.
The victims appeared to be immigrants from Central America, though their nationalities had not yet been confirmed.
Moreno reported that some of the survivors said they were from the neighbouring country of Guatemala.
Moreno said that it appeared that speed and the sheer weight of the truck's human cargo may have caused it to tip over, and that as the vehicle toppled over, it hit the base of a steel pedestrian bridge. There was a curve in the road near the accident scene that may have contributed to the crash.
That meant at least 107 people were crowded into the vehicle. It is not unusual for freight trucks in Mexico to be carrying so many people in migrant-smuggling operations in southern Mexico.
Some survivors fled after crash
Rescue workers who first arrived at the scene and who were not authorized to be quoted by name said that even more migrants had been aboard the truck when it crashed and had fled for fear of being detained by immigration agents.
One paramedic said some of those who fled into surrounding neighbourhoods were bloodied or bruised, but still limped away in their desperation to escape.
The truck had originally been a closed freight module of the kind used to transport perishable goods. The container was smashed open by the force of the impact. It was unclear if the driver survived.
Those who spoke to survivors said the migrants told of boarding the truck in Mexico, near the border with Guatemala, and of paying between $2,500 and $3,500 US to be transported to Mexico's central state of Puebla. Once there, they would presumably have contracted with another set of migrant smugglers to take them to the U.S. border.
In recent months, Mexican authorities have tried to block migrants from walking in large groups toward the U.S. border, but the clandestine and illicit flow of migrant smuggling has continued.
In October, in one of the largest busts in recent memory, authorities in the northern border state of Tamaulipas found 652 mainly Central American migrants jammed into a convoy of six freight trucks heading toward the U.S. border.
Migrants involved in serious accidents are often allowed to stay in Mexico at least temporarily because they are considered witnesses to and victims of a crime, and later Thursday Mexico's National Immigration Institute said it would offer the humanitarian visas to the survivors.
