Photo courtesy of the police cordoning off the scene/ Vision China
html On the evening of the 127th, in the suburbs of San Antonio, Texas, in the southern United States, a municipal worker heard calls for help and then discovered a large container truck abandoned on the side of the road. The door was half open and inside There were many bodies...Police Chief William McManus said that after the police arrived at the scene, they found a body on the ground outside the truck, and later found more bodies in the truck compartment. There have been 46 confirmed deaths.
There were 12 adults and 4 children in the truck who survived and were sent to the hospital for treatment. San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood said there was no drinking water on board and the container truck was not air-conditioned, and the survivors suffered from heat stroke and collapse.
The people on the bus are presumed to be immigrants without legal procedures. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called the incident a "human tragedy."
According to AFP reported that dozens of emergency personnel at the scene received psychological counseling after completing their work. Hood said it was psychologically overwhelming for emergency responders to "open the car doors and see piles of bodies."
U.S. Congressman Tony Gonzalez said on social media: " It's 102 degrees Fahrenheit (about 39 degrees Celsius) today in San Antonio . Imagine being left for dead in an 18-wheeler." Police Three people have been detained and their connection to the incident is unclear. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is conducting the investigation.
San Antonio is about 250 kilometers away from the border between the United States and Mexico , where similar tragedies have occurred. In 2017, 10 immigrants were suffocated to death in a truck with a damaged air conditioner and blocked vents. Dozens more were sent to the hospital due to heat stroke and dehydration. In 2003, 19 immigrants were found dead in a sweltering van.
text/Xinhua News Agency
