BUS ROLLS DOWN SLOPE IN MEXICO; 13 DEAD

August 12, 2006

PACHUCA, Mexico - A passenger bus skidded off a highway in central Mexico early Saturday and rolled down a 320-foot slope, killing 13 people and injuring a dozen others, local police said.

Rescue workers struggled to pull the injured and dead from the wreckage of the bus, which came to rest at the bottom of a rocky gully just outside the city of Pachuca, about 60 miles northeast of Mexico City.

The cause of the pre-dawn crash was not immediately known, and it was unclear whether the driver was among the dead or injured. The bus was traveling from the Gulf coast city of Tampico to Mexico City, said Sixto Hoyos, the director of public safety for Hidalgo state, where the accident occurred.

The injured, including four children, were taken to two local hospitals. One child was in extremely serious condition, authorities said.

Eleven people died at the scene, and two more died at the hospital, local authorities reported.

Authorities said the accident occurred just before sunrise on a sharp curve known as "the drop of death."