Official fired over odyssey of truck with 300 bodies

Guadalajara : A state government in Mexico has fired a prosecutor over a spectacle in which a fetid-smelling tractor trailer carrying 273 bodies was driven around aimlessly for lack of room in the morgue.

“I am not willing to tolerate this kind of mistake, which shocks and horrifies public opinion,” said the governor of western Jalisco state, Aristoteles Sandoval, as he fired prosecutor Raul Sanchez.

The state’s chief coroner was fired earlier in the week over the sad drama in the state capital, Guadalajara. The bodies were in the refrigerated truck because the morgue in Mexico’s second-largest city was full. Officials originally put the number of bodies at 157 but on Wednesday they raised it to 273. The truck was parked for two weeks at a warehouse in a downtrodden neighborhood on the city outskirts until residents complained of the stench.