A horrific accident killed 19 people after a cargo truck carrying corn crashed into a passenger bus in Mexico.
Authorities adjusted the death toll after initially reporting 24 deaths, citing information from first responders, while six more were injured following the incident.
The victims were pulled from a ravine after the bus, carrying 25 people, crashed and overturned on a highway in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas on Saturday.
According to local reports, the trailer, which was carrying corn, had become loose from a tractor when the passenger bus collided with it, forcing it to leave the road and fall into a deep ravine.
The attorney general’s office said it was “conducting investigations to arrest the driver” of the truck.
Some 19 people were killed and six injured after a passenger bus and a cargo truck crashed on a highway in Mexico.
The bus fell into a deep ravine in the state of Zacatecas, in central Mexico.
Authorities work at the scene of a passenger bus accident where several people died and others were injured while traveling on a highway from Nayarit to Chihuahua, in Piedra Gorda, Mexico, on October 26.
Efforts were underway on Saturday morning to recover some of the bodies that had fallen into a ravine, a local government official who asked not to be identified told Reuters.
Images shared on social media showed rescue teams and security forces, including military personnel, securing the area as rescuers worked to recover the bodies.
The bus was headed to Ciudad Juárez, a city on the US-Mexico border in the state of Chihuahua.
The highway was closed to traffic, said senior Zacatecas state official Rodrigo Reyes, adding that army, National Guard and civil protection forces were deployed.
There were no immigrants among the victims, according to the attorney general’s office.
Traffic accidents in Mexico have been increasing since 2020, when there were just over 300,000.
Last year, 381,048 accidents were recorded, which caused 4,803 deaths and more than 90,000 injuries, according to the National Institute of Statistics Inegi.
It comes after an accident in April that claimed the lives of 14 people and left 31 others injured in Mexico.
The bus was headed to Ciudad Juárez, a city on the border between the United States and Mexico in the state of Chihuahua.
The Attorney General’s Office said it was “conducting investigations to arrest the driver” of the truck.
The bus overturned on the El Capulín-Chalma highway, on the outskirts of the capital, with images from the time showing a large white bus lying on its side, blocking the road.
The injured were rushed to hospital under “code red”, meaning the death toll is likely to continue to rise.
The bus passengers were traveling from Guanajuato to the Chalma sanctuary for religious reasons, according to local media.
And in January, at least 19 people were killed and 22 injured in a head-on collision between a passenger bus and a goods truck.
Nearly 50 people are said to have been on board when the disaster struck on a highway in the municipality of Elota, near the northern port city of Mazatlán.
The bus was traveling from the city of Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco, to Los Mochis, in Sinaloa.
The truck reportedly overturned when the bus crashed into it, causing both vehicles to catch fire.