At least ten people have died in a traffic accident in Texas (USA) when the van in which they were traveling and which was overloaded with migrants crashed.
10 dead after a van full of migrants crashed in South Texas
Authorities were still investigating Thursday the crash of a van in remote south Texas that killed at least 10 people and injured 20 others.
The accident occurred Wednesday afternoon at a highway intersection in Encino, Texas, when the heavy-duty van overturned after the driver lost control on a curve, Brooks County Sheriff Urbino Martinez said.
The van was designed to hold 15 passengers, but 29 immigrants who entered the country illegally are suspected to be inside.
The accident comes less than half a year after two other fatal crashes that killed several immigrants traveling in narrow vehicles on roads near the border.
The accident occurred shortly after 4 p.m. at an intersection of U.S. 281 and Business 281. A witness reportedly saw a Ford van speeding down that road when the driver attempted to make a turn, and the van crashed into a metal utility pole.
The driver and nine passengers died at the scene, while 20 other people in the van were transported to area hospitals with serious to critical injuries, said Safety Sgt. Nathan Brandley.
The identities of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin, Olivarez said.
Last March 16, eight undocumented immigrants were killed in a road accident in the Texas border town of Del Rio in the middle of a police chase.
That accident occurred two weeks after another van carrying 25 immigrants was involved in another serious accident in which 13 undocumented immigrants, mostly Mexicans, who had just crossed the border illegally, were killed.
