Five people have been killed in a horror crash involving a car and a motorcycle.

The incident occurred at a highway intersection around 15 miles south of Fort Myers in Estero, Florida. Pictures from the scene show the aftermath of the crash in which an SUV with four passengers inside flipped and burst into flames, debris can be seen strewn across the road.

The Florida Highway Patrol pronounced the victims dead at the scene after the motorcycle crashed into the side of the SUV at around 8.45pm yesterday. The US 41 road was blocked for several hours so officials could remove victims.

It comes after eight people died yesterday when the driver of a car suspected of carrying smuggled migrants fled police and smashed into an oncoming vehicle on a South Texas highway.

The crash happened around 6.30am when the driver of a 2009 Honda Civic tried to outrun deputies from the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office and attempted to pass a semi truck, the state Department of Public Safety said.

Everyone in both vehicles was killed, including the 21-year-old driver of the Civic, who was from Houston, and his five passengers. Some of the passengers were from Honduras, department spokesman Christopher Olivarez said in a statement -the two people in the Equinox were from Georgia.

It was unclear how fast the vehicles were going, but photos provided by law enforcement show both were mangled and most of the Equinox was burned. Wednesday’s crash near Batesville — about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio — is the latest deadly vehicle crash involving migrants, marking the highest death toll since 13 people died in a collision in remote Holtville, California, in March 2021.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has tallied 106 deaths in Border Patrol vehicle pursuits from January 2010 to June of this year. Deaths averaged 3.5 a year through 2019 but spiked in 2020, leading officials to develop a new policy for vehicle pursuits with an eye toward increasing safety.

Original Article