Mexico truck crash: Officials working to identify over 50 victims

Mexican authorities are working to identify the 55 people killed after a truck overturned on a road in the south of the country.

More than 150 people, said to be migrants from Central America, were crammed into the truck's trailer when it overturned in the state of Chiapas.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the nation was hurting after the tragedy.

He called on the world to address the "root causes" of mass migration.

The truck was reportedly speeding when it flipped on a sharp bend and hit a pedestrian bridge on a main road leading to the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, at about 15:30 local time on Thursday.

Sabina Lopez, who lives nearby, told the AFP news agency that she saw dozens of people screaming in pain, some trapped in the wreckage and others unconscious.

"It was horrible to hear the wailing. I just thought about helping," Ms Lopez, 18, said.

She said the impact of the crash had broken the container in half and ripped off its roof and saw a wounded man pleading with a wounded companion to fight his injuries.

"Don't go to sleep, don't close your eyes," she recalled him saying. "Remember what you promised your mother! Hold on."

Residents offered crash survivors water and mobile phones to contact relatives. They also said the driver and a person with him appeared injured, but then fled the scene.

Hours after the horrific crash and the site has been cleared of almost all evidence that anything fatal took place here.

The only signs of the massive loss of life are the burn marks and bloodstains on the road, and the remains of some twisted metal crash barriers.

There are no police officers, no emergency services and no forensic investigators. Every few minutes local residents stop by to add to the small shrine - some flowers, a candle, a cross or, heartbreakingly, a bottle of water or a sports drink.

It is a potent symbol of the migrants' harsh journey, as many have walked for kilometres on foot through searing heat in southern Mexico in pursuit of their goal of reaching the United States.

For these migrants, though, that trip was cut short before it even really got started, loaded into cramped and dangerous conditions in the back of a truck by people-smugglers. Many had paid thousands of dollars for the journey which ended at this unremarkable stretch of road on Chiapas.

Yet even this terrible loss of life - the worst in a single day in Mexico since 2010 - won't be enough to deter many other young people from attempting the journey themselves before the end of the year.

Emergency officials said the victims included men, women and children. Most of the people on board were from Guatemala, but there were others from Honduras, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. More than 100 people were injured in the crash.

The National Institute of Migration said it is working to identify the dead and will seek to repatriate the bodies over the coming days and weeks. It added that survivors will be allowed to stay in Mexico.

Chiapas, which neighbours Guatemala, is a major transit point for undocumented migrants.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America try to cross through Mexico each year in a bid to reach the US.

The US-Mexico border is the deadliest single crossing in the world according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This year alone, at least 650 people have died trying to cross the border - more than in any other year since IOM's records began.