Victims' families demand answers in deadly Mexico train crash as authorities promise to investigate

EL ESPINAL, Mexico (AP) — Survivors and families of the victims of a deadly train crash in southern Mexico demanded answers on Monday as the government vowed to investigate what caused a train to derail the day before on a rail line connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico.

Thirteen people, including a teenager, died when the Interoceanic Train linking the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz — with 250 people on board — went off the rails on Sunday as it passed by a curve in near a town in Oaxaca. Nearly 110 people were injured.

Videos from the scene show train cars that had fallen off the side of a steep hill into dense jungle below as other cars lay toppled on their side.

In 2023, Mexico's then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated the train line as part of a government push to expand the railway and connectivity in rural swaths of Mexico. Hic critics noted that many of the president's infrastructure projects were quickly constructed, often dodging regulatory bureaucracy and environmental impact studies.

López Obrador's ally and successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, told reporters on Monday she was heading to the region and that the train and the infrastructure had been working correctly.

“Our first priority is taking care of the victims," she said. “The second is rigorously investigate what caused this accident.”

A family's despair

Hector Serrano Garcia, whose 15-year-old daughter Luisa was killed in the crash, was overcome with grief as he gathered with family members in a small funeral home in Oaxaca.

Carmen García, Luisa's grandmother who was also on the train, begged on Sunday night on social media for help in finding her granddaughter.

“We haven't been able to find her anywhere,” the grandmother said late Sunday night. “Please, everyone, touch your hearts, it's my granddaughter.”

Serrano Garcia said the family received the tragic news that Luisa was killed on Monday.

“We’ve had very little information," he said. “It's been incredibly hard for all the families.”

‘It was going very fast’

Baldo Enríquez Antonio said his wife, Ana Guadalupe Fabre, and their 16-year-old son were both on the train, returning home to Veracruz after spending Christmas with relatives in Oaxaca.

They told him the train “was going very fast on the curves,” he said over the phone from a hospital in southern Oaxaca.

Fabre broke several ribs in the crash and their son hurt his leg and had a gash on his forehead where he suffered a bad cut, Enríquez Antonio told The Associated Press.

Despite his own injuries, their son pulled his mother out of their toppled train car.

When asked about the speed of the train, Sheinbaum said she had seen videos of survivors talking about the speed but warned that “we shouldn’t speculate” but let the "prosecutors do their job.”

Clemente reported from Tapachula, Mexico. Associated Press writer Megan Janetsky in Mexico City contributed to this report.