10 people dead, 20 injured in Texas car crash

An overloaded passenger van crashed on a remote South Texas highway, killing at least 10 people, including the driver, and injuring 20 others, authorities said.

The crash took place at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday in Encino, about 80 km north of Texas' border city McAllen, reports Xinhua news agency.

The driver of van, designed to hold 15 passengers but overloaded with 29, lost control around a curve on Highway 281, Nathan Brandley, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Brandley said all the injured were in serious or critical conditions.

Brooks County Sheriff Urbino Martinez said he believed most of the passengers were migrants, because in recent years, a surge in migrants crossing the border illegally has caused a rise in the number of crashes involving vehicles jammed with migrants who pay a large amount of money to be smuggled into the country.