Bus crash kills more than 50 pilgrims returning from Easter events

Published: 2006-04-18

MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- An overcrowded bus carrying young pilgrims returning from an Easter celebration plunged more than 650 feet off a mountain road in southeastern Mexico, killing more than 50 people. Reports varied on the number of deaths. The Associated Press reported April 18 that 57 people died in the crash. The government of the Mexican state of Veracruz, where the accident occurred, said 56 people died in the crash. Some Mexican newspapers called it the worst bus accident in the country in more than 20 years. The chartered bus fell down a ravine at around 8:45 a.m. April 17 in clear weather, the Veracruz governor's office said in a statement. Authorities said the crash probably was caused by excessive speed or by brake failure. The bus was carrying members of an evangelical church in the southern state of Tabasco returning from a convention in Jalisco, on Mexico's Pacific coast, the statement said. Most of the victims were ages 15-20, the Reforma newspaper reported.

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