MEXICO CITY?A truck carrying 650 beehives crashed in northern Mexico, and the angry insects escaped, forcing officials to evacuate scores of nearby residents and set up road blocks to warn motorists.

The truck overturned on a curve Tuesday in Santa Lucia, about 180 miles southeast of Presidio, Texas.

Eighty residents of Santa Lucia were told to leave and police set up checkpoints to urge approaching drivers to close their windows and to drive slowly so as not to anger the bees further, the newspaper Diario de Chihuahua reported Thursday.

Twenty beekeepers, including students from a local agricultural school, were called to help rebuild hives and lure some of the bees back into captivity.

Thousands of other bees?including a swarm that gathered around a tow-truck crane?were killed.

City civil defense officials said some residents were stung, none seriously.