Battered survivors tell of Mexico truck crash that killed 55

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico — Simply counting up the quality outgo of the horrifying motortruck clang that killed 55 migrants and injured implicit 100 is chilling, adjacent for those who survived the catastrophe connected a road successful confederate Mexico.

About 40 of the survivors were listed with “multiple contusions” astatine section hospitals precocious Friday, and they were the slightest injured.

Nearly 20 others had fractured bones, often their arms and wrists, suggesting they tried to interruption the unit of the interaction erstwhile the semi-trailer packed with smuggled migrants tipped implicit and smashed into a pedestrian bridge.

The worst were those with encephalon injuries oregon terrible interior damage, often crushed chests, abdomens oregon pelvises. The unit of the clang slammed migrants against each other, bashed them into the alloy sides of the trailer and threw immoderate onto the roadway.

Enmanuel Ramón Hernández was 1 of the section residents who rushed to assistance aft the crash. He said the crushing value of the migrants themselves mightiness person caused galore deaths.

“The bulk (of the injuries) were from contusions oregon interior injuries, blows,” Hernández said. But of the archetypal 45 dormant that were laid out, helium added, “they didn’t person immoderate grounds of breached bones oregon disposable fractures. They were asphyxiated among themselves.”

Survivors recounted from their infirmary beds however their determination wrong the trailer determined who lived and who died.

Those unlucky capable to beryllium riding jammed against the fragile walls of the freight instrumentality astir surely died, survivors said. Those successful the mediate of the packed radical survived, cushioned by their chap migrants arsenic the instrumentality flipped onto the road.

“The ones who died were the ones who were up against the walls of the trailer,” said 1 young migrant from Guatemala being treated for a breached arm. “Thank God, we were successful the middle. But the ones connected the sides, they died.”

The migrant, who did not privation to springiness his sanction due to the fact that helium did not person due documents successful Mexico, described a gruesome country of screaming and humor successful the moments aft the motortruck crashed into the basal of the alloy pedestrian span Thursday. He estimated astir 250 migrants were connected board.

The surviving had to extricate themselves from the tangled heap of dormant and dying bodies.

“They fell connected apical of me, determination were similar 2 oregon 3 chap migrants connected apical of me,” the younker said.

Then came the grim task of trying to propulsion the wounded out.

“When I got out, different chap migrant was shouting,” the subsister said. “He was shouting to me, I pulled astatine him and got him retired and enactment him connected the broadside of the road, but helium died.”

The younker said the truck’s driver, whose whereabouts were unknown, had entered a crisp curve astatine a precocious complaint of velocity and mislaid power connected a roadworthy starring to Tuxtla Gutierrez, superior of Mexico’s Chiapas state.

While the Mexican authorities is trying to appease the United States by stopping caravans of walking migrants and allowing the reinstatement of the “Remain successful Mexico” policy, it has been incapable to stanch the flood of migrants stuffed by the hundreds into trucks operated by smugglers who complaint thousands of dollars to instrumentality them to the U.S. border.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo called Friday for tougher sentences for migrant trafficking.

“We person to toughen the punishment for those who nett disconnected our people,” Brolo said.

Survivors said astir of those crammed into the trailer were from Guatemala and Honduras. Authorities said migrants from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Mexico were besides aboard.

Those who spoke to survivors said they told of boarding the motortruck successful Mexico, adjacent the borderline with Guatemala, and of paying betwixt $2,500 and $3,500 to beryllium taken to Mexico’s cardinal authorities of Puebla. Once there, they would presumably person contracted with different acceptable of smugglers to instrumentality them to the U.S. border.

Despite the cautionary tale, much migrants continued connected the determination toward the United States. On Thursday, aft the accident, a radical of astir 400 chiefly Central American migrants walked down a road starring to Mexico City, ignoring entreaties from migration agents and National Guard troops to crook themselves in.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed poorness and deficiency of jobs that unit radical to migrate.

“We person been insisting that the causes that originate these unfortunate events indispensable beryllium addressed,” said López Obrador, who has called connected the United States to put successful improvement programs for Central America. He said the U.S. authorities is moving dilatory connected the issue.

Pope Francis, who visited Chiapas successful 2015 and has made the plight of migrants a hallmark of his papacy, sent a telegram of condolences Friday to the archbishop of Tuxtla Gutierrez, offering prayers for the dormant and their families, and for the injured.