19 people killed and 32 injured in pilgrimage bus crash in Mexico

The state confirmed that a child under four years old was among the injured

(REUTERS)

Nineteen people have died and scores were injured after a bus carrying people to a religious site in Mexico crashed into a house.

The Friday crash is thought to have happened after the brakes on the bus failed, causing it to smash into a building, local media reported.

The bus was on a highway in the township of Joquicingo, in Mexico State, about 45 miles outside of Mexico City, when it crashed.

At least 10 ambulances attended the scene, with several passengers airlifted to hospital, CNN reported.

“At the moment 19 deceased and 32 injured people are reported and it will be the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mexico, who will confirm the number of deaths,” the state department of health said in a statement.

(REUTERS)

“The injured were transferred to hospitals in Malinalco, Toluca, Tenango del Valle, among others, with the support of Civil Protection from different municipalities, SUEM and the Red Cross.”

The state confirmed that a child under four years old was among the injured who had been taken to nearby hospitals.

The bus was heading from the western state of Michoacan to Chalma, a town that has been visited by Roman Catholic pilgrims for centuries.

There was no immediate information on the condition of the injured passengers. Many Mexicans go on religious pilgrimages as 12 December, the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, approaches.

Because they often walk or bike on narrow roads or travel in aging buses, accidents are not uncommon.

Mexico State borders Mexico City on three sides, and includes both remote rural villages and crowded suburbs of the capital.

Chalma was a site sacred in pre-Hispanic times before the 1521 conquest. After the Spanish came, believers say, a cross miraculously appeared in a cave that had been dedicated to an Aztec god, making Chalma a Christian pilgrimage site.

With additional reporting from Associated Press