“An alleged human smuggling event” was alerted by San Antonio police to the US Department of Homeland Security’s investigation unit, which is leading the probe, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said Monday. The incident appears to be among the most deadly in recent years for migrants near the southern border.
Three people detained away from the trailer site are in police custody, though their connection to the situation is unclear, Police Chief Bill McManus said at a news conference Monday night.
Authorities were alerted to the scene just before 6 p.m., when a worker in a nearby building heard a cry for help, McManus said. The worker found a trailer with doors partially opened and saw people deceased inside, McManus said.
Forty-eight people died on the scene, and two died at hospitals, the federal law enforcement official told CNN on Tuesday, noting the toll is preliminary.
Sixteen people — 12 adults and four children — were taken alive and conscious to medical facilities, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said at Monday night’s news conference.
Patients were hot to the touch and suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion, Hood said. The refrigerator semitractor-trailer had no visible working air conditioning unit, and there was no sign of water inside, he said.
“None of these people were able to extricate themselves out of the truck,” Hood said. “So they were still in there, awaiting help, when we arrived … meaning just being too weak — weakened state — to actually get out and help themselves.”
Those in the truck included at least 22 Mexicans, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans, the federal law enforcement official said.
Federal authorities are trying to figure out the origin of the truck and its path, the official said, adding it’s not clear how long people inside the truck had been dead.
Victims ‘were likely trying to find a better life’
The 60 firefighters that were on scene are being put through a critical incident stress debriefing, Hood said.
“We’re not supposed to open up a truck and see stacks of bodies in there. None of us come to work imagining that,” the fire chief said.
One of the bodies was outside the trailer when firefighters arrived, Hood said.
“It’s tragic,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Monday. Those who died, he said, “had families, who were likely trying to find a better life.”
Assistance to Mexican nationals would be provided, Mexico’s consul general in San Antonio said on social media. At least two of the 16 survivors have been identified as Guatemalan, according to Mexico’s foreign minister, citing the consul.
US officials are working to better handle the flow of migrants to the US-Mexico border, Mayorkas told CNN earlier this month. Their operation builds on previous initiatives to go after smugglers whom migrants often depend on as they make their way to the border. Homeland Security last spring also announced an effort to crack down on criminal smuggling organizations, alongside federal partners.
Migrants in recent years have faced other tragedies and challenges enduring dangerous heat and terrain while trying to cross the US-Mexico border.
CNN’s Carolyn Sung, Michelle Watson, Karol Suarez, Sharif Paget, Jen Deaton, Amanda Jackson and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.