Human trafficking:

At least nine people die after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas.

SAN ANTONIO — At least nine people died after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, authorities said Sunday in what they described as an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

The driver was arrested, and nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many with extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials said.

“We’re looking at a humantrafficking crime,” Police Chief William McManus said. He called it “a horrific tragedy.”

Authorities were called to the San Antonio parking lot late Saturday night or early Sunday and found eight dead inside the truck. A ninth victim died at the hospital, said Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The victims “were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water,” Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the weekend tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at some point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said.

Thirty-nine were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination, officials said. Some of the survivors told authorities they were from Mexico, Homan said.

Authorities did not say whether the rig was locked when they arrived or where it might have been headed. San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border.

Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees on Saturday. The trailer didn’t have a working air conditioning system, Hood said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, from Clearwater, Fla., was taken into custody. Charges are expected to be filed Monday.

The tractor-trailer was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. A company official did not immediately respond to a phone message.

Eric Gay / Associated Press San Antonio police officers investigate the scene where at least nine people died after riding in a tractor-trailer loaded with as many as 100 others in stifling heat. The driver was arrested.