24 burnt to death in horror bus fireball

Acapulco: At least 24 people were killed and nine injured Thursday in a crash involving a bus carrying tourists and a petrol tanker in southern Mexico, an emergency services official said.

The crash sparked an explosion that killed the driver of the tanker and people on the bus on a highway in Guerrero state, said Marco Cesar Mayares, secretary of the Guerrero Civil Protection service.

The state authorities’ securities spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia said in a statement that 24 people were killed, raising an earlier estimate given by Mayares.

A report by the Civil Protection service cited survivors saying they were heading on holiday to the beach district of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo in Guerrero.

Passengers recounted feeling an impact in the back of the bus before the explosion, and a handful of them managed to flee from the vehicle amidst the flames, it said.

The injured were taken to a hospital in the neighboring state of Michoacan.

Mayares said the bus was carrying tourists from the town of Morelia in Michoacan.