At least eight people were killed and dozens of others were injured on Tuesday after a bus carrying migrant farm workers in Central Florida collided with a pickup truck driven by a man under the influence, the authorities said.
A retired school bus was carrying 53 migrant workers when collided with an oncoming Ford pickup truck that had veered toward the road’s centerline, according to Lt. Patrick Riordan, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol, which is investigating.
The bus then drove through a fence, hit a tree and overturned, Lieutenant Riordan said at a news conference, adding that the collision happened in a “sideswipe manner.”
The driver of the pickup truck, Bryan MacLean Howard, 41, was arrested on eight counts of D.U.I. manslaughter, the authorities said Tuesday afternoon.
It was unclear Tuesday evening if Mr. Howard had legal representation.
In Florida, a D.U.I. manslaughter conviction carries a minimum sentence of four years in prison.
All eight people who died had been on the bus. About 40 others, including the driver of the pickup truck, were taken to hospitals to be treated for injuries, Lt. Riordan said. He said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon at the crash site that several people were in critical condition, adding that there was a “high probability” that the number of fatalities would rise.
At least some of the workers were from Mexico, Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, said on social media.
“I am sorry to report that a tragic car accident occurred in Florida involving Mexican farm workers,” she wrote.
The authorities did not immediately release the names of those killed in the accident, and said that notifying the victims’ next of kin was complicated by the fact that the workers came from abroad.
The authorities did not confirm where the bus was traveling, but WCJB-TV reported that the bus was carrying workers employed at a watermelon farm in the area.
Cannon Farms, a farm and market in Dunnellon, Fla., said it would be closed until further notice out of respect for “the losses and injuries endured” in the accident. The company did not answer calls seeking comment.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said a stretch of State Highway 40 where the accident occurred would be closed for most of the day.
The workers had permits to work and were part of a trove of people who arrive in rural Marion County each spring to harvest produce, Sheriff Billy Woods of Marion County told reporters.
“This time of year, we always have migrant workers that are in our county that are on buses just like this,” he said.
Sheriff Woods said it was unclear if the passengers were wearing seatbelts.
Transportation-related incidents accounted for nearly half of the deaths among agricultural workers in the United States in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In a federal rule expanding farmworker protections that takes effect on June 28, the Labor Department will require that farmworkers on temporary visas have access to seatbelts on most employer-provided transportation.
Lt. Riordan said it could take investigators at least six months to determine what caused the fatal crash.
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