Flatbed Truck Crashes in Baja, Kills 20 Laborers, Injures 23

Twenty Indian farm workers died and 23 others were injured when the flatbed truck they were riding sped out of control and rolled over on a curve of a Baja California highway, Mexican federal police said Thursday.

Eleven of the injured were in serious condition at Ensenada General Hospital. The other 12 were less seriously hurt and were in hospitals in San Quintin, about 200 miles south of Ensenada.

Sgt. Teresa Ojeda, of the federal highway police in Ensenada, said the truck, without side rails, was carrying the laborers to work in the fields when it crashed at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday about 35 miles south of San Quintin.

The driver apparently was speeding when he hit a curve on the two-lane highway from San Quintin to Santa Inez, and the truck’s brakes failed. The truck rammed into a telephone pole and flipped over, Ojeda said.

The identity of the driver was not released, but he was said to be among the injured. The truck was registered to Alejandro Canelo of San Quintin, whose family is said to have large land holdings in the area.

Several of the victims have not been identified, Ojeda said.

The workers, all men, had been picked up at various neighborhoods around the heavily agricultural area that is populated by thousands of Indian migrants from the poor southern state of Oaxaca on the mainland.