A triple-vehicle crash left 23 dead in Las Garzas de Pacora, a town about 35 kilometres east of Panama City, the authorities confirmed Friday. According to police officers cited in Panamanian media, the accident late Thursday happened as a truck miscalculated when it tried to pass a sedan and crashed head-on with a bus. Firefighters and members of Panama's National System of Civil Protection worked for several hours to rescue 18 injured and recover the dead bodies that were trapped in the bus wreckage. Gerardo Victoria, the medical director of Santo Tomas Hospital, said several of the injured required surgery. One of the injured was said Friday to be brain-dead.