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Mexico train collision kills 10

16 June 2010 04:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two cargo trains have collided in Mexico on Tuesday killing at least 10 people and wounding several others, including illegal migrants and train operators, APA reports quoting presstv.ir website.

It is not yet known whether the dead were bystanders or members of the train crews.

The US-bound freight train carrying tons of corn and apparently undocumented passengers slammed into another train that was being repaired on the track at a station in the town of El Fuerte in the western state of Sinaloa, an emergency official said.

"The crash came after a faulty track change. Someone didn’t change the tracks correctly," Martin Gastelum, spokesman for Sinaloa’s public prosecutor’s office, told Reuters.

"The driver of the freight train evidently was not aware that there was another train on the same tracks and was unable to stop before hitting it head on," Gastelum said.

There are fears that the death toll could rise. "They are still searching to see if there are bodies buried under the corn," he added.

Every year thousands of Central Americans risk their lives traveling thousands of kilometers through Mexico to cross the border into the United States.

The United States has an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, most of whom enter from neighboring Mexico