EL ESPINAL, Mexico (AP) — Survivors and families of victims of a deadly train crash in southern Mexico demanded answers Monday as the government vowed to investigate what caused a train to derail the day before on a rail line connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
Thirteen people, including a teenager, were killed when an interoceanic train connecting the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, with 250 people on board, derailed on Sunday while passing a curve near the city of Oaxaca. About 110 people were injured.
Video from the scene showed train cars falling down the side of a steep hill into the dense jungle below, with other cars lying on their sides.
In 2023, then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador opened the rail line as part of the government's efforts to expand rail and connectivity in rural Mexico. Critics of the HEC have noted that many of the president's infrastructure projects were built quickly, often bypassing regulatory bureaucracies and environmental impact studies.
Lopez Obrador's ally and successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, told reporters on Monday that she was heading to the region and that the train and infrastructure were working properly.
“Our first priority is taking care of the victims,” she said. “The second is to thoroughly investigate the causes of this accident.”
Family despair
Hector Serrano Garcia, whose 15-year-old daughter Luisa died in the crash, was overcome with grief as he gathered with family members at a small funeral home in Oaxaca.
Carmen Garcia, Louise's grandmother who was also on the train, pleaded on social media Sunday night for help finding her granddaughter.
“We couldn’t find her anywhere,” the grandmother said late Sunday. “Please touch all your hearts, this is my granddaughter.”
Serrano Garcia said the family received the tragic news that Louise was killed on Monday.
“We had very little information,” he said. “This has been incredibly difficult for all the families.”
“Everything was going very quickly”
Baldo Enriquez Antonio said his wife Ana Guadalupe Fabre and their 16-year-old son were on the train returning home to Veracruz after spending Christmas with relatives in Oaxaca.
He was told the train was “moving very fast on the curves,” he said by phone from a hospital in southern Oaxaca.
The crash left Fabre with several broken ribs and their son with an injured leg and a gash on his forehead, where he suffered a severe cut, Enriquez Antonio told The Associated Press.
Despite his own injuries, their son pulled his mother out of the overturned carriage.
When asked about the train's speed, Sheinbaum said she had seen videos of survivors talking about the speed, but warned that “we shouldn't speculate” and should let “prosecutors do their job.”
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Clemente reported from Tapachula, Mexico. Associated Press writer Megan Janetski in Mexico City contributed to this report.
