Senior Mexican drug cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano has apparently been killed in a fight with marines in the northern border state of Coahuila, the navy said.

Some 132 inmates have escaped from a jail in northern Mexico, sparking a search by federal police and soldiers in an area close to the US border.

Gunmen sprayed bullets at a restaurant where the mayor of a Texas border town was eating with a Mexican state attorney general and other officials, killing a woman leaving the building.

RAGING flood waters killed at least 31 people on Monday when they crashed through a normally arid town in northern Mexico close to the US border.

A flash flood swept through a northern Mexican city, killing at least 31 people caught in the path of an overflowing river, forcing hundreds into shelters, and damaging homes and cars.