Train derailment kills 13 in Mexico

A passenger train derailed in the Mexican state of Oaxaca on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, according to Mexican authorities.

Nearly 250 passengers and crew members were on board when the front engine derailed near the village of Nizanda, causing the train to partially plummet down an embankment, according to local media reports.

As of Sunday evening, officials had not determined a cause. Authorities, including the federal prosecutor’s office, said an investigation had been opened.

Rescue teams worked to reach passengers, some of whom were trapped or fell down the slope. On Sunday evening, the secretariat of the navy said that 98 people had been injured, with 36 hospitalized.

President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on the social platform X that five of the injured were in critical condition. She said officials had been sent to the scene to support the families of those who had died.

The derailment occurred on the Z Line of the Interoceanic Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which runs about 180 miles from Salina Cruz on the Pacific to Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf of Mexico.

Nizanda lies around 300 miles southeast of Mexico City, the capital.

On Sunday, people who feared their relatives had been on the derailed train were sharing their names and photographs, along with pleas for help, on social media.

The Mexican government has described the rail route across the isthmus — the narrow land bridge between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean — as a vital artery for international trade. With ports and rail lines connecting the two bodies of water, some see it as potentially offering competition to the Panama Canal.

Under Mexico’s former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the railway was refurbished and expanded.

Along with improvements meant for freight trains, the expansion included adding passenger service on the main route, Line Z, which the train that derailed Sunday was traveling on. Passenger service officially started in late 2023.

While other accidents have occurred on the railway, until Sunday none had been deadly. While the line was being refurbished, a freight train derailed, causing infrastructure damage but no known injuries.

About a week before Sunday’s accident, a passenger train on the Z Line collided with a tractor-trailer in the southern state of Chiapas, but the nearly 150 passengers on board were unharmed. Authorities said the trailer had failed to yield the right of way.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.