MADRID -- Thirteen Ecuadoreans farm laborers were killed on Wednesday when a train crushed their van on a level crossing as they were heading to work in southeastern Spain, a government spokesman said.

The accident happened near the town of Lorca in the Murcia region. Several of the 30 passengers on the train were taken to hospital with injuries.

"The latest news is that there are 13 dead, all of them of Ecuadorean nationality, and three people have been taken to hospital with various injuries," the government's representative in Murcia, Jose Joaquin Penarrubia, told Spanish national radio.

The Murcia region, where the accident happened, is in the dry southeastern corner of Spain where fruit and vegetables are grown under plastic sheeting all year round.

Thousands of immigrants, often Ecuadoreans and Moroccans, work on farms there for low wages.

They are popular with employers but there have been bouts of racist violence in towns like Totana in Murcia or El Ejido in Almeria when immigrants have been blamed for crimes and attacked by the local population.

(Reuter)