Reuters
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NOS News•today, 03:11•Amended today, 05:17
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46 dead migrants have been found in an abandoned truck in the American city of San Antonio. Sixteen people were found alive, including four children. They have been taken to hospital.
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The local fire chief says the injured suffered from overheating and heat stroke. It was nearly 40 degrees in San Antonio at the time of the find. There was no trace of water in the truck, the fire officer said. In addition, the truck’s cooling did not seem to work.
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Piles of bodies
The truck was parked in a secluded spot along the railroad tracks on the south side of San Antonio. The San Antonio police chief said his officers received a call just before 6 p.m. (local time) from someone working nearby.
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That person heard someone calling for help and saw several bodies through the semi-open doors of the trailer. Inside, officers then found “piles of bodies”.
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The police chief said three people were arrested after the find. It is still being investigated what exactly they have to do with the case. The identity of the victims is not yet known. The Mexican consul is on his way to the truck.
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Past truck dramas
In 2017, a truck used for people smuggling was also found in San Antonio in a parking lot at a branch of supermarket chain Walmart. It contained ten dead migrants.
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That truck’s cooling system was found to be malfunctioning and ventilation holes were clogged, causing some of the estimated more than 100 migrants who had been put in the truck by people smugglers to die from the heat and lack of oxygen.
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Europe was rocked by a similar drama in 2019. Then 39 bodies were found in a refrigerated truck in Grays, England, not far from London. The dead were all of Vietnamese descent.
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