Mexico City, November 6 (RHC-Xinhua) -- Classes were suspended at university campuses around Mexico on Wednesday to protest the government's failure to locate 43 college students who vanished when they were training to be teachers in the southwest state of Guerrero late September.

Students and faculty in the capital of Mexico City, the central state of Michoacan and the southern state of Oaxaca were among those launching 24-hour to 72-hour strikes, local media reported.

"More than 65,000 students from the San Nicolas de Hidalgo University of Michoacan ... began a 72-hour strike in support of the 43 teaching students who disappeared," the daily La Jornada said.

Classes were suspended at 51 university campuses in and around Mexico City, including the schools of medicine, dentistry, psychology and law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the daily Reforma said.

In Chilpancingo, capital of Guerrero state, students from the same school as the victims blocked highway exits into the city, in one instance by parking a passenger bus across the road.

The school closings mark the first of three days of planned protests to pressure federal officials into speeding up the investigations into the crime that has shocked the nation.

On Thursday, both students and teachers are set to march in Mexico City from the presidential palace of Los Pinos to the central square, and on Friday, protesters plan to "seize" toll booths on federal highways, La Jornada said.

The protests come a day after federal authorities detained fugitive mayor of Guerrero town of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, who were believed to have ordered an attack that killed six people and left the 43 students missing.