Mexico bus-truck crash leaves 43 dead

Forty three people were killed and 20 were injured Friday after a truck crashed into a bus carrying agricultural workers in Mexico's eastern Veracruz state, officials said.

"In total, 43 people died in this accident" near the town of Alamo, Veracruz government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez told Milenio television.

The bus was traveling from the port of Coatzacoalcos to the northern border state of Coahuila when the crash happened at around 4:30 am (0930 GMT) in the north of Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico.

Dominguez could not say how many people had been on board the bus but she said the rescue operation had ended.

"The first report we have, which we need to confirm with investigators, is that the truck's trailer came loose and hit the bus," Dominguez said.

The truck's driver drove away and the trailer also hit another cargo vehicle, according to Maria Elena, a government worker in the town of Alamo.

The injured were taken to hospitals in the nearby port city of Tuxpan.

Another collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a road in Jalisco state, western Mexico, left 36 hurt and one dead Friday, a state civil protection official told AFP, without giving further details.

On April 5, 14 sugar cane workers died and nine were hurt when the bus they were traveling in crashed into a tree and overturned, also in Jalisco.

Around 24,000 people die from road accidents in Mexico each year, according to insurance companies -- a figure almost double the annual drug violence death toll.

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