The accident occurred in the city’s southeast, killing more than 20 and injuring at least 70 others, the authorities said.
Follow live updates on the train crash in Mexico City.
A subway overpass collapsed on Monday night in Mexico City, sending the cars of a passenger train plunging to the ground and killing at least 23 people, including children, the city’s mayor said. At least 70 others were transported to hospitals with injuries.
Here’s what we know about what happened:
A rail overpass collapsed.
The crash occurred at 10:22 p.m. on one of the city’s newest stretches of track, Line 12, which was inaugurated in 2012. Local residents had expressed concern about the structural integrity of the overpass, including cracks in the concrete, after a powerful earthquake devastated parts of the city in September 2017.
Local officials did not address specific concerns in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s accident, but Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that maintenance was carried out on the train line every day. The system as a whole has been plagued by problems in recent years.
“At this moment, we can’t speculate about what happened,” Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters early Tuesday. “There has to be a deep investigation, and whoever is responsible has to be held responsible.”
By sunrise on Tuesday, the search for survivors had largely turned into a recovery operation, with four of the victims’ bodies still trapped in the wreckage, according to government officials.
“It is sad news,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico. “We send our condolences to the families of the victims of this accident.”
Photos and videos of the crash released by the government showed at least one orange-and-yellow subway car hanging from an overpass. An eight-second video that captured the collapse showed automobile traffic flowing on either side of the suspended bridge. Suddenly, it cracks and buckles in a burst of concrete and sparks, falling between the lanes of vehicles.
Rescuers rushed to the scene.
After the collapse, a crane was holding one car in the air as emergency workers checked to see if any passengers remained trapped.
Carlos Zúñiga Pérez, a television host in Mexico City, tweeted a video of emergency medical workers rescuing injured passengers from a tilted subway car by helping them down from ladders.
Ambulances, firefighters, the military and Mexico’s forensic department came and went from the scene while a helicopter hovered overhead.
Mexico City Metro, officially called Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, warned residents to avoid the area. Ms. Sheinbaum said she was at the site supporting rescue personnel and that minors were among the dead. At least 70 were transported to hospitals with injuries.
Enrique Bonilla, 57, a passenger on the train, told the television network Televisa that people had fallen on top of one another and that he was able to grab onto a pole and escape through a broken window.
It was all over in seconds, Mr. Bonilla added. “Thank God I came out alive.”
Mexico City’s subway has faced problems.
The subway system in Mexico City, the country’s sprawling capital, handles more than four million passengers a day. It is the second-largest in the Americas, after the one in New York City.
When the system was inaugurated in 1969, it was the pride of Mexico, but in recent years it has become a symbol of urban decay.
There was concern over the integrity of the elevated tracks and support columns on the stretch of tracks where Monday’s accident occurred after a powerful earthquake hit Mexico in September 2017.
The elevated infrastructure on the subway line — known as Line 12, or the Golden Line — was damaged in that quake, El Universal newspaper reported.
Some local residents later told El Universal that they feared that the damaged infrastructure might collapse. The newspaper reported at the time that a column between the Olivos and Nopalera stations had suffered structural damage.
Follow live updates on the train crash in Mexico City.
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