MEXICO CITY - Gunmen apparently from two rival drug gangs fought a ferocious gunbattle on a highway in a western Mexico state that killed 28 men Wednesday, authorities said.

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The attorney general's office in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit said the gunfight started about 5 pm near the town of Ruiz, 500 miles (805 kilometers) of Mexico City.

Police initially responded to a citizen complaint of a kidnapping by a group of armed men in a nearby city who reportedly fled on the federal highway, the prosecutors office said. As the officers headed toward the scene, they heard a second report of a shootout involving the same men, it said.

Police found 28 men lying dead and four others wounded when they arrived. Ten vehicles were abandoned and bullet casings from high-powered weapons were scattered about.