BUENOS AIRES - At least 14 people were killed, mostly police officers, and another 53 were injured in an early morning highway crash Tuesday involving two packed police buses and a cargo truck in Argentina's southern Patagonia region, local media said.

The accident occurred along a stretch of National Highway No. 3 in the Patagonian province of Chubut just before 6:45 a.m. local time, when a truck carrying cereals crashed into the police buses, which were bringing the officers back from a security operation at an oil field.

The police were headed first to the town of Puerto Madryn, about 65 kilometers from the accident site, and later back to their bases in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, some 1, 330 kilometers to the north.

Images provided by the daily El Chubut showed one of the police buses mangled almost beyond recognition and the roadway covered in what appeared to be the truck's spilled cargo.  

The truck driver and both police bus drivers were confirmed to be among the dead.

The injured were taken to a hospital in nearby Puerto Madryn, and those in critical condition were to be transported to larger hospitals in the nearby city of Trelew and the provincial capital Rawson, rescue workers said.

The highway was closed to traffic while rescue teams removed the bodies and wreckage, and authorities tried to determine the cause of the crash.