Sobbing family members began arriving in Maltrata yesterday at a makeshift gymnasium-turned-morgue to identify their loved ones. Earlier in the day, an overloaded bus careened off a highway and into a 200m ravine killing 57 people.
The coffins stretched most of the length of an indoor basketball court, with an almost equally haunting pile of luggage belonging to the victims stacked up against one wall.
The crash was the among the worst in recent memory in Mexico, where bus accidents that claim dozens of lives are common.
PHOTO: AP
It occurred yesterday morning, near Maltrata, in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, about 200km east of Mexico City.
Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the crash, but say the bus was speeding when it swerved off a highway linking Mexico City and the port city of Veracruz, considered one of the country's most dangerous routes.
The driver was seen attempting to maneuver into a lane designed for vehicles that have brake or other mechanical failure, and the bus plowed through a metal guard rail before crashing to the bottom of the ravine.
The vehicle fell 200m, landing about 20km from Maltrata. It was smashed to pieces with both of its axles severed from its main body.
Just three people survived. A man and a woman were in a serious condition and an eight-year-old girl was conscious but had suffered multiple fractures, said Ranulfo Marquez, deputy director of civil protection for Veracruz state, where the crash occurred.
Marquez said by phone late yesterday that the dead had been identified as 29 women, 27 men and one 13-year-old boy.
All were Mexican citizens, and most hailed from three communities in Tabasco state, which borders Veracruz.
The driver was believed to be among those killed.
The bus, equipped to hold 46 passengers, was carrying 60, some of whom were standing.
Federal Preventive Police Commander Reinaldo Ascencio Cavazos said that the owner of the bus had been detained for questioning.
Marquez said the bus had been on the road for 22 years and was unfit for use.
It had already traveled for more than 10 hours as it returned to Tabasco from an Easter week gathering near the western city of Guadalajara.
The victims traveled to an event in Tequila, 60km northwest of Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city, he said.
Hundreds of thousands of local residents filled the highways on Sunday and yesterday as they returned from Easter week vacations.
The holiday typically sees a large number of highway deaths.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS