In South Mexico, a truck disaster kills 49 migrants and injures 58 more

On Thursday, police reported that a cargo truck filled with people who appeared to be Central American migrants flipped over and slammed onto a pedestrian bridge over on a highway in southern Mexico, killing at least 49 people and wounding almost 500 others.

According to the head of the Chiapas state civil defence office, Luis Manuel Moreno, a preliminary estimate lists 49 people dead and 58 people injured. Around 40 people were hurt, he added, and were brought to local hospitals with critical wounds.

The accident occurred on a highway going to the state capital of Chiapas. Victims were strewn across the pavement and inside the truck's freight compartment, according to photos taken at the scene.

The victims seemed to be Central American immigrants, however their nationalities were not confirmed. According to Moreno, some of the survivors claimed to be from Guatemala, a neighbouring nation.

According to Moreno, the sheer weight of the truck's human cargo may have caused it to tip over, and the vehicle collided with the base of a steel pedestrian bridge as it tipped over.

At least 107 individuals were crammed inside the truck as a result of this. Freight trucks transporting so many individuals in migrant-smuggling operations in southern Mexico are not uncommon.

Even more migrants were aboard the truck when it crashed, according to rescue personnel who were not permitted to be identified by name. They fled for fear of being captured by immigration agents.

Some of those who escaped into nearby areas were bloodied or bruised, but nevertheless limped away in their eagerness to get away, according to one paramedic.

The vehicle had started off as a closed freight module for transporting perishable commodities. The force of the hit shattered the container open. The driver's fate remained unknown.

Survivors said the migrants told them they boarded the truck near the Guatemalan border in Mexico and paid between USD 2,500 and USD 3,500 to be taken to Puebla, Mexico's central state. They would have likely engaged with another group of migrant smugglers to transport them to the US border once they arrived.

Mexican officials have attempted to stop migrants from marching in large groups toward the US border in recent months, but migrant smuggling has continued clandestinely and illegally.

ravelling toward the US Border in October, in one of the greatest busts in recent memory.

Irineo Mujica, an activist spearheading a march of a few hundred migrants across southern Mexico for almost a month and a half, blamed the calamity on Mexico's tactics of cracking down on migrant caravans.

On Thursday, Mujica and his group were on their way to the outskirts of Mexico City, after weeks of battling National Guard personnel who attempted to obstruct the march. Mujica said the group would come to a halt on Thursday to pray for the migrants who had died.

"These policies that kill us, that murder us, is what leads to this type of tragedy," Mujica said.

They are, in fact, two distinct groupings. Migrants who lack the thousands of dollars required to pay migrant smugglers are drawn to caravans.

Migrants who are involved in major accidents are frequently allowed to remain in Mexico, at least temporarily, because they are both witnesses and victims of a crime.

Even as his administration has accepted calls from the US government to stop the flow of migrants travelling north, President Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador has been frantic to avert mass deaths of migrants.

It was one of the highest single-day death tolls for migrants in Mexico since the Zetas drug gang massacred 72 migrants in the northern state of Tamaulipas in 2010.