A cargo truck jammed with individuals who seemed to be Central American migrants rolled over and crashed right into a pedestrian bridge over a freeway in southern Mexico on Thursday, killing a minimum of 53 folks and injuring dozens extra, authorities reported.
The federal Attorney General’s Office stated the preliminary estimate lists 53 lifeless, with three of the injured in essential situation.
Luis Manuel Moreno, the pinnacle of the Chiapas state civil protection workplace, stated about 21 of the injured had severe wounds and had been taken to native hospitals.
The crash occurred on a freeway main towards the Chiapas state capital. Photos from the scene confirmed victims strewn throughout the pavement and contained in the truck’s freight compartment.
Video footage confirmed the lifeless and injured migrants jumbled right into a pile contained in the collapsed freight container, with some struggling to extract themselves from the burden of our bodies piled atop them.
Later, rescue staff organized the lifeless in rows of white sheets, facet by facet, on the asphalt.
The victims seemed to be immigrants from Central America, although their nationalities had not but been confirmed. Moreno reported that among the survivors stated they had been from the neighbouring nation of Guatemala.
Sitting on the pavement beside the overturned trailer, survivor Celso Pacheco of Guatemala stated the truck felt prefer it was dashing after which appeared to lose management underneath the burden of the migrants inside.
Pacheco stated there have been migrants from Guatemala and Honduras aboard and estimated there have been eight to 10 younger youngsters. He stated he was making an attempt to achieve the United States, however now he anticipated to be deported to Guatemala.
Rescue staff tried to excavate survivors from a pile of humanity within the flipped trailer, separating the injured from the lifeless. Dazed wounded stumbled among the many wreckage.
Marco Antonio Sanchez, director of the Chiapas Firefighter Institute, stated ambulances raced victims to 3 hospitals, carrying three to 4 injured every. When there weren’t sufficient ambulances they loaded them into pickup vans, he stated.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei wrote on Twitter: “I deeply regret the tragedy in Chiapas state, and I express my solidarity for the victims’ families, to whom we will offer all the necessary consular assistance, including repatriation.”
Moreno stated that it appeared that velocity and the burden of the truck’s human cargo could have prompted it to tip over, and that because the automobile toppled over it hit the bottom of a metal pedestrian bridge. There was a curve within the highway close to the accident scene that will have contributed to the crash.
That meant a minimum of 107 folks had been crowed into the automobile. It isn’t uncommon for freight vans in Mexico to be carrying so many individuals in migrant-smuggling operations in southern Mexico.
But rescue staff who first arrived on the scene and who weren’t licensed to be quoted by title stated that much more migrants had been aboard the truck when it crashed and had fled for concern of being detained by immigration brokers.
One paramedic stated a few of those that fled into surrounding neighborhoods had been bloodied or bruised, however nonetheless limped away of their desperation to flee.
The truck had initially been a closed freight module of the sort used to move perishable items. The container was smashed open by the pressure of the affect. It was unclear if the driving force survived.
Those who spoke to survivors stated the migrants instructed of boarding the truck in Mexico, close to the border with Guatemala, and of paying between $2,500 and $3,500 to be transported to Mexico’s central state of Puebla. Once there, they’d presumably have contracted with one other set of migrant smugglers to take them to the US border.
In latest months, Mexican authorities have tried to dam migrants from strolling in massive teams towards the US border, however the clandestine and illicit move of migrant smuggling has continued.
In October, in one of many largest busts in latest reminiscence, authorities within the northern border state of Tamaulipas discovered an 652 primarily Central American migrants jammed right into a convoy of six freight vans heading towards the US border.
Irineo Mujica, an activist who’s main a march of a few hundred migrants who’ve been strolling for extra virtually 1 1/2 months throughout southern Mexico, blamed Mexico’s insurance policies of cracking down on migrant caravans for the catastrophe.
Mujica and his group had virtually reached the outskirts of Mexico City on Thursday, after weeks of coping with National Guard officers who tried to dam the march. Mujica stated the group would cease Thursday and provide prayers for the lifeless migrants.
“These policies that kill us, that murder us, is what leads to this type of tragedy,” Mujica stated.
In reality, they’re two very totally different teams. Caravans usually appeal to migrants who don’t have the hundreds of {dollars} wanted to pay migrant smugglers.
Migrants concerned in severe accidents are sometimes allowed to remain in Mexico a minimum of quickly as a result of they’re thought of witnesses to and victims of against the law, and later Thursday Mexico’s National Immigration Institute stated it could provide the humanitarian visas to the survivors.
The company additionally stated the Mexican authorities would assist determine the lifeless and canopy funeral prices or repatriation of their stays.
Mass deaths of migrants are one thing that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been determined to keep away from, at the same time as his administration has accepted requests from the US authorities to stem the move of migrants transferring north. “It is very painful,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
It was one of many worst single-day loss of life tolls for migrants in Mexico for the reason that 2010 bloodbath of 72 migrants by the Zetas drug cartel within the northern state of Tamaulipas.
