At least 6 dead in Mexico train crash

An infamous cargo train used by Central American migrants heading to the U.S. derailed in a remote region of southern Mexico on Sunday, killing at least six and injuring over 20 people, authorities said. Thousands of migrants ride the roof of the cargo train known as "The Beast," enduring brutal conditions for a chance at crossing into the U.S.

Images from the scene showed freight cars upturned and wheels separated from their base. Officials said eight of the 12 cars overturned and that a Honduran man was among the dead. 

The Tabasco state government said at least 250 Honduran migrants were on the train heading north from the Guatemala border.

A spokesman for Tabasco state government said the death toll had risen to six, with 22 injured. He said 16 people were being treated in hospitals in nearby Choapas, Veracruz, which  borders Tabasco, although there were different reports of numbers injured. 

Luis Felipe Puente, national emergency service coordinator, said on Twitter that 35 people were injured.

Ambulances were unable to reach the accident scene in Huimanguillo in the southern state of Tabasco because of the difficult terrain. The locomotive and first car did not derail and were used to move victims to the hospital.  Heavy rains had loosened the earth beneath the tracks and shifted the rails, officials said.

The Red Cross said dozens of soldiers, marines and civilian emergency workers rushed to the area, which ambulances couldn't reach. Officials were trying to establish air or water links to the scene.

The accident took place at 3 a.m. Sunday in an area surrounded by lakes and forest, according to Tabasco state Civil Protection chief Cesar Burelo Burelo. Dozens of migrants were on the train heading north from the Guatemala border, he said.

The Red Cross said dozens of soldiers, marines and civilian emergency workers were trying to get access to the area. Officials were trying to establish air or water links to the scene.

Mario Bustillos Borge, the Red Cross chief in Tabasco, described the rescue as "a complex situation" that was making it difficult to get rapid confirmation of the true number of dead and injured.

"There are some very high estimates, and others that are more conservative," he told a local radio station, without providing details.

Mexico's foreign ministry lamented the accident and said it was helping Central American embassies whose citizens were affected by the crash. 

While the number of Mexicans heading to the U.S. has dropped dramatically, there has been a surge of Central Americans making the 1,000-mile northbound journey, fueled in large part by the rising violence brought to their homelands by the spread of Mexican drug cartels.

Other factors, experts say, are an easing in migration enforcement by Mexican authorities and a false perception that Mexican criminal gangs are not preying on migrants as much as they had been.

Central American migration remains small compared to the numbers of Mexicans still headed north, but steeply rising numbers speak starkly to the violence and poverty at home. The number of Hondurans deported by the U.S. government increased between to 32,000 last year from 24,000 in 2011. Authorities say it's hard to estimate the numbers crossing north.

U.S. border agents caught 99,013 non-Mexican migrants, mostly from Central America, in the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, nearly double the same period a year earlier and the highest since 2006. The number of migrants actually making the trip is believed to be far higher.

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Deportations have expanded under President Barack Obama's administration, with nearly 410,000 being deported in 2012 -- up from from 30,000 in 1990. Most of those deported — 75 percent — are sent back to Mexico. So far, the Obama administration has deported more than 1.6 million people, the Associated Press reported.

Al Jazeera and wire services