At least 13 people were killed after an Interoceanic train derailed on Sunday in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, authorities said, in one of the deadliest
rail accidents in the country in recent years. The Mexican Navy said the train was carrying about 250 people, including nine crew members and 241 passengers. Of those on board, 193 were reported to be out of danger. Ninety-eight people were injured, the Navy said, and 36 were receiving medical treatment. The cause of the derailment has not yet been made public. Emergency services remained at the scene as investigators worked to determine what led to the crash. President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a post on X that five of the injured were in critical condition and that senior government officials had been sent to the site to support the families of those killed. Mexico's Attorney General's Office has opened a formal investigation, Attorney General Ernestina Godoy Ramos said in a separate social media post.
BREAKING: 13 killed, 98 injured after Interoceánico train derails in Istmo de Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico pic.twitter.com/gWKfnRO0aP
— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) December 29, 2025
The train was part of the Interoceanic Corridor project, a signature infrastructure initiative inaugurated in 2023 under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The project is intended to modernize rail links across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, connecting the Pacific port of Salina Cruz with Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf of Mexico.
Mexican officials have promoted the corridor as a strategic trade route, expanding ports, railways and industrial facilities in an effort to create an alternative to the Panama Canal and to spur economic development in southern Mexico. The train service is also part of a broader push to revive passenger and freight rail in the region.
The derailment followed another incident on the same route on December 20, when a train collided with a cargo truck attempting to cross the tracks. No deaths were reported in that crash.
