Toll Increases to 112 in Mexican Crash

GUASAVE, Mexico--Rescue teams searching along the San Rafael River yesterday found bodies as far as 14 miles downstream from the site of a rail disaster that killed at least 112 people, the government news agency said.

The number of injured reached 205, the Notimex agency quoted state security coordinator Jose Carlos Saracho as saying, but hospital officials said most victims were treated for minor injuries and released.

The federal Transportation Department said the 11-car train, carrying about 360 people, plunged off a bridge Wednesday morning following torrential rains and fell about 25 feet into the river in northwestern Mexico. The train was bound from the Pacific coastal resort of Mazatlan to Mexicali, on the California border.

A department statement said the area experienced its worst rainstorm in the last 50 years just before the crash. It said two inches of rain in six hours caused a dam to overflow, and the resulting torrent washed out supports for the bridge, which collapsed under the train's weight.

"Before I realized what happened, it had already crashed," said one train victim interviewed on television. His nose was bandaged but he said he was otherwise unhurt.

Hundreds of workers from nearby towns showed up to help, said officials in Guasave, near the crash site 730 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Helicopters flew in rescue workers and railroad handcars trundled out casualties. Flooding closed roads.

The train, popularly known as "The Burro" because it stops at almost every station along the 900-mile route, is patronized almost entirely by poor Mexicans. It left Mazatlan at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, and had gone about 250 miles when the accident occurred at about 4 a.m. Police said they did not know how fast the train was going at the time.

Javier Lopez, the Red Cross duty officer in Los Mochis, 60 miles northeast of the crash site, said most of those on the train had apparently been sleeping and that most of the victims drowned.

No Americans have been reported among the dead, said Dan Sainz, the U.S. vice consul in Mazatlan, but he said bodies were still being found.

At least three foreigners survived the wreck, said Teresita Rubio at Turismo Tagore in Guasave. She said two men and a woman from Manchester, England, came to the travel agency for help, washed the mud off their clothes, got some food and headed for San Diego by bus.

Many reports referred to people missing, but many survivors apparently simply walked away and left the area or went home.

Accidents are frequent on the rundown Mexican railway, but this was by far the worst this decade. A rail spokesperson, like others consulted, said it was not the worst in Mexican railroad history, but could not list a more serious one.