53 dead after truck smuggling migrants crashes in Mexico

By MANUEL DE LA CRUZ and EDGAR H. CLEMENTE
Associated Press

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (AP) — Mexican rescue workers rushing to a highway accident found a horrific scene of death and injury. A freight truck jammed with as many as 200 migrants tipped over and crashed into the base of a steel pedestrian bridge in Mexico. The migrants inside the cargo trailer were tossed and crushed in a pile of both the living and the dead. By late Thursday, the death toll stood at 53, and authorities said at least 54 people had been injured in the crash in southern Mexico. It was one of the worst single-day death tolls for migrants in Mexico since the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants by the Zetas drug cartel in the northern state of Tamaulipas.