Authorities are investigating whether human smuggling was involved after an SUV packed with 25 people and a tractor trailer crashed near the US Mexico border leaving 13 people dead.
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Most of those killed were Mexicans, a Mexican official said.
When police arrived, some of the passengers were trying to crawl out of the crumpled 1997 Ford Expedition while others were wandering around the fields.
Twelve people were found dead when first responders reached the two-lane highway, which winds through fields in the agricultural southeastern corner of California about 201 kilometres east of San Diego. Another person died at a hospital, California Highway Patrol Chief Omar Watson said.
"It was a pretty chaotic scene," said Watson, who also described it as "a very sad situation."
The cause of the collision was unclear, authorities said, and it also was not immediately known why so many people were crammed into a vehicle built to hold eight people safely.
Watson said the SUV only had front seats - the middle and back seats had been removed. That would allow more people to fit into the vehicle but makes it even more unsafe.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the SUV was carrying migrants who had crossed the border, ferrying farmworkers to fields, or was being used for some other purpose.
"Special agents from Homeland Security Investigations San Diego responded ... and have initiated a human smuggling investigation," the agency said in a statement, adding that other details weren't being released.
The people in the vehicle ranged in age from 15 to 53 and were a mix of males and females, officials said. The 28-year-old driver was from Mexicali, Mexico, just across the border, and was among those killed. The 68-year-old driver of the big rig, who is from nearby El Centro, was hospitalised with moderate injuries.
A California Highway Patrol report said the SUV entered an intersection directly in front of the big-rig, which hit the left side of the SUV. Both vehicles came to a halt on a dirt shoulder.
It's not clear if the SUV ran a stop sign or had stopped before entering the highway. It's also not yet known how fast the tractor-trailer was travelling.
Thousands of people cross into the US each day to work in the fields. The harvest of lettuce and other winter vegetable crops runs from November until March, and buses and SUVs carrying farmworkers are often rumbling down the rural roads s in the early morning hours.
The area has also seen smugglers carrying migrants in trucks and vehicles. Hundreds of migrants who died after crossing the border are buried in unmarked graves in Holtville's cemetery on the edge of town.
Australian Associated Press
