At least 13 dead after train derials in southern Mexico

There were 250 people on board the train when it derailed in Asunción Ixtaltepec, Oaxaca, on the train’s main line between Veracruz and Salina Cruz.

In a statement, the navy said that 36 people required hospital care and the rest sustained minor injuries. Hundreds of naval personnel and rescue vehicles have been sent to the scene, it said.

An investigation will be opened to determine the cause of the derailment, Mexico’s Attorney General Ernestina Godoy said in a post on X.

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also addressed the incident, writing on X that she has instructed the Secretary of the Navy and Interior Ministry’s Undersecretary for Human Rights “to travel to the site and personally attend to the families”.

Managed by Mexico’s Navy, the Interoceanic Train links Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts. Its main line only came into service in 2023, under a new program by then-Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to promote economic development in southern Mexico and create an alternative to the Panama Canal for cargo transport.