Bus crashes in northwest Mexico, killing 16 people

MEXICO CITY -- A bus crashed through a railing and into a shallow river in northwestern Mexico, killing 16 passengers and injuring two dozen others, emergency officials said Sunday.

Officials were investigating whether the driver of the bus fell asleep, causing the crash early Saturday south of Hermosillo, 990 miles northwest of Mexico City. Three of the dead were children.

The bus was traveling from Escuinapa, a town south of the tourist resort of Mazatlan on the Pacific coast, to the border city of Tijuana, emergency official Yolando Villarreal said.

All the passengers were Mexicans.

It was the third fatal bus crash in Mexico in less than a week.

On Monday, eight people were killed and 14 were injured in the northern state of San Luis Potosi. A day later, another passenger bus crashed into a toll booth on a highway in western Mexico, killing 30 people. Both were carrying pilgrims headed to a re-enactment of the Last Supper.