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At least 10 people have been killed and more than a dozen injured after an overloaded pickup truck carrying 29 passengers crashed into a remote South Texas highway.
Authorities said the crash happened shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday on US 281 in Encino, Texas, about 50 miles north of McAllen. Brooks County Sheriff Urbino Martinez said the van, designed to hold 15 passengers, was heavy and tipped over when the driver lost control in a curve.
Sgt Nathan Brandley of the Texas Department of Public Safety said the van was traveling too fast and hit a utility pole before hitting a stop sign. The vehicle was not involved in a lawsuit, Brandley said.
Martinez said he believed most of the passengers were migrants. The driver was among the dead, the sheriff said.
The identities of the people in the van were withheld until relatives could be made aware, Brandley said. No information about the van, including its place of registration or owner, was immediately disclosed.
Encino is a community of about 140 people about 3 km south of the Falfurrias border patrol checkpoint.
An increase in the number of migrants attempting to cross the border has led to an increase in the number of accidents involving vehicles often full of people paying large sums to be smuggled into the country.
The crash comes months after 13 people were killed when an SUV filled with 25 migrants collided with a semi-truck in Holtville, Calif., Near the US-Mexico border.
In another fatal accident in March, eight migrants were killed when their vehicle crashed into another truck as it was chased by police nearly 50 miles north of the border town of Del Rio, Texas. The driver faces a life sentence after pleading guilty to several federal charges.
Encino is a community of about 140 people about 3 km south of the Falfurrias border patrol checkpoint.
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