XALAPA: A truck crashed into a passenger bus Friday in Mexico's eastern Veracruz state killing at least 39 people and injuring 20 more, officials said, updating the toll by nine people late morning.
The bus was traveling from the port of Coatzacoalcos to the northern border state of Coahuila when the crash occurred at around 4:30 am (0930 GMT) in the north of Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico.
The figure could continue rising as the rescue operation was not over, according to civil protection officials in the town of Alamo, where the accident took place.
As rescue workers recovered bodies from the wreckage, officials organized the transfer of the injured to hospitals in the nearby port city of Tuxpan.
"The first report we have, which we need to confirm with investigators, is that the truck's trailer came loose and hit the bus," Gina Dominguez, a spokesman for the state government, told local W radio.
The bus passengers were agricultural workers travelling to work, according to local newspaper El Diario del Golfo, citing witnesses, on its website.
Another collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a road in Jalisco state, western Mexico, left 36 wounded 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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