In western Mexico, a tragic accident claimed the lives of at least 18 people when a passenger bus veered off a highway and plunged into a ravine early on Thursday. Most of the passengers were foreigners, and some were en route to the U.S. border, specifically the northern border town of Tijuana.
The bus, operated by the Elite passenger line, was carrying around 42 passengers, including individuals from India, the Dominican Republic, and various African nations. The Nayarit state government revealed that the bus driver has been detained, with authorities suspecting speeding around a bend as the potential cause of the accident.
Efforts to identify the victims were ongoing at the time of the report. Approximately 20 people were taken to hospitals for treatment, with one woman’s condition described as delicate by the state government. The accident occurred near Barranca Blanca on the highway outside the state capital Tepic.
Rescue operations faced extreme difficulty due to the 40-meter-deep ravine, as reported by Jorge Benito Rodriguez, the security and civil protection secretary for Nayarit.
As of the report, both the bus company and Mexico’s migration institute had not provided immediate comments on the incident.
This tragic accident adds to the string of bus-related disasters in the country, including a bus crash in the southern state of Oaxaca last month that resulted in 29 fatalities and a central Mexico bus carrying migrants from South and Central America that crashed in February, killing 17 people.