Truck Slams Into Mexico Kindergarten; 7 Killed

A runaway trailer truck veered off a highway Friday, hit a bus and slammed into a kindergarten, killing at least seven people, including two children, police said.

At least five more people were hospitalized after the afternoon accident about 15 miles west of downtown Mexico City, police spokesman Red Alberto Palacios said.

The dead included the truck’s driver and his passenger, both men, as well as three female teachers from the school, including a 17-year-old assistant, Palacios said.

The bodies of the dead adults and children, who were 4 or 5 years old, lay on the sidewalk, partially covered by white sheets.

Police held back hundreds of people who crowded around the accident scene in the poor Santa Fe neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital.

Griselda Delgadillo, a mother of one of the children at the kindergarten, arrived after the bodies had been taken away. She feared her daughter Itzel, 4, was among them.

“I don’t know. Some people say she’s still alive, others say she was one of the dead,” said Delgadillo, near tears. “I just want to know if she’s alive or dead.”

Authorities said most of the children had already gone home when the truck lost its brakes. “Luckily, because of the hour, most of the children had already left,” said a city official, Hector Hernandez Llamas.

The truck swerved off the highway and onto an inclined road in an apparent attempt to slow down, Palacios said. Instead, it hit the small passenger bus and tore through a cinder-block wall before landing on the roof of the one-story cinder-block school, he said.

“We think there are at least two more dead underneath the truck, two teachers,” he said.