Only four people survived the fiery crash of a bus into the back of a broken down truck on a highway in southeastern Mexico.  The truck parked in the road’s beltway without any signal or warnings for oncoming vehicles.  36 people were killed.

The bus was traveling from Villahermosa in Tabasco state to Mexico City early on Sunday morning, when it plowed into the back of the truck, which the authorities said was “badly parked on the highway”.

“Apart from being hit, the bus also caught fire, making the job of identifying bodies difficult,” Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte told local television.  In fact, the bodies were so badly burned that authorities originally believed that 33 people were killed.  Forensics sorted out the number of bodies.

Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto expressed his regret over the accident in a Twitter message:  “I wish to send my heartfelt condolences to the families of the people who died in the road accident in Veracruz,” he wrote.