Forty-nine Central American migrants were killed and 48 others badly injured when the cargo truck they were riding rolled over and crashed into a bridge over a highway in Mexico’s southernmost state Thursday.
The local police said the deadly accident occurred in Chiapas, Mexico.
Chiapas state civil defense leader Luis Manuel Moreno revealed that some of the survivors were from the nearby country of Guatemala, although the nationalities of all the victims have not been confirmed.
In the initial traffic investigation, the crash occurred due to the weight of its passengers and its speed.
The truck reportedly hit the base of a steel pedestrian bridge near a curve on the road.
The strong impact of the crash smashed open the closed freight storage area where the migrants were being held.
The injured migrants told the investigators that they boarded the truck in Mexico near the Guatemalan border and paid between $2,500 and $3,500 to be driven to Puebla, near Mexico City, where they would then hire another set of smugglers to take them to the US border.
Sources said Mexico has recently cracked down on migrant caravans hiking north to seek asylum in the US, but the illegal transports have persisted.
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