Fear and anger among survivors of Mexico’s bus accident: ‘I thought it was going to explode’

At the Atlacomulco General Hospital, only the murmurs of family members holding their breath and the shouts of the police announcing names through a megaphone can be heard. José Ramírez keeps his eyes on the door, waiting for his daughter Azucena’s name to be called. On Monday morning, he dropped her off at the bus station in San Felipe del Progreso, in the State of Mexico, so the 22-year-old could take the 6:00 a.m. bus to her job as a domestic worker in Mexico City. About an hour later, his daughter managed to call him and tell him that the double-decker bus had been involved in an accident on the railroad tracks. When Ramírez arrived, he saw bodies lying next to the halted train, and the bus split in three.

The accident left at least 10 passengers dead and another 45 injured. The bus had left San Felipe del Progreso early in the morning with more than 55 people on board, mostly construction and domestic workers who work and live in the capital during the week. They had gone back home to be with their families over the weekend, and were heading back to the capital early Monday.

The driver had covered just a little over nine miles (15km) when he reached a freight railroad crossing in the Atlacomulco Industrial Zone, an area of warehouses and factories about 80 miles (130 km) northwest of the Mexican capital. The heavy traffic at that hour forced him to slow down before crossing. In an attempt to get to the other side before the train arrived, he decided to go ahead. The intersection only has a stop sign; there is no barrier or traffic light to regulate passage. The only warning the driver had of the oncoming train was the deafening noise approaching from his right, as the freight convoy made its way through a line of vision obscured by a billboard and trees that cover part of the road.

A miscalculation, a reckless act, or a combination of the two, combined with poor signaling at the crossing, led to the tragedy. The locomotive struck the bus, which had managed to get halfway across the tracks. The impact caused the vehicle to collapse and wrap itself around the front of the train. It was dragged several feet along the rails until it split. The rear end wound up on the south side of the Maravatio-Atlacomulco federal highway. The front part ended up on the north side. And the central section was crushed against the face of the locomotive.

Yoana Segundo, 17, was riding on the upper deck of the bus. She had gotten up very early to get to her job as a domestic worker in Mexico City on time. Fatigue overcame her, and she was asleep when she felt the impact. When she opened her eyes, she saw herself on the verge of falling off one of the sides of the bus, which lost its roof and part of the walls on impact. Several passengers were holding her to prevent her from falling. Her aunt is waiting in the Atlacomulco hospital for the completion of surgery for the abdominal trauma she suffered. Yoana’s name is one of 21 on a handwritten list in pencil on the emergency room door, where several relatives are looking for their loved ones who left for work on that bus.

Standing a few feet away is the family of Rubén Ascensión Rodríguez, 52. This bricklayer takes the Herradura Plateada line bus every Monday to go to work, and returns on Saturdays to be with his wife and three daughters. They saw photos of the accident on Facebook and were quick to recognize their father’s brown coat, lying on the side of the tracks. Upon impact, he was thrown from the second floor and landed on the side of the bus. He recalls that other passengers picked him up and took him to the hospital, where he received stitches in his head, according to his wife, Florencia Ascencio.

Javier Mercado, the mayor of San José del Rincón, a neighboring municipality where many of the injured resided, visited the hospital to reassure the families. He told them that the bus company will “take care of everything” and that a legal team will be provided to manage insurance, transportation and hospital expenses. Mercado said that a program will be implemented to train drivers about the risks at railroad crossings. “There are still people who were on the bus who haven’t been located and others who haven’t been identified,” he said.

Traveling in the top of the bus were María Elena Francisco Cruz’s four children, all bricklayers working together on a construction site in the capital. The eldest, René Campos, 31, is in the Atlacomulco hospital with head and mouth injuries. His siblings were taken to a private clinic with cuts on their legs and bruises on their bodies. “They want to release him and take him to another hospital, but I’m afraid something might happen to him on the way,” his mother says, her voice breaking from tears.

Esperanza Santiago Bacilio is one of the survivors who has been discharged and is waiting at the Prosecutor’s Office for information on how to proceed legally. She is 43 years old and was going to work at a house in the capital where she is a domestic worker. She was asleep downstairs when she felt the impact, which slammed her into the seat in front of her. When she opened her eyes, she found the lifeless body of a young man at her feet, and she says that passengers from the upper level were falling on top of her. She felt dazed, surrounded by screams for help, the glass shards that pierced her head, and the back pain that shot through her body. “I was afraid the bus was going to explode, so I hurried to get out with other people,” she recalls. She had made this trip hundreds of times before, and emphasizes that it is a very dangerous crossing.

Beside her, María del Carmen Sánchez Reyes chokes back tears after losing her 35-year-old daughter, Carolina. Also a cleaner and cook in a home in the capital, she had gone to spend the weekend with her three children, whom her grandmother cares for while she saved money to send them. The grandmother recalls that her daughter said goodbye to her last night while making tortillas. “She told me to sit down and rest and that she’d make them,” she recalls. She knew something had happened to her when she didn’t call at 7:30 as usual. While the whole family waits for her body to be released, her loved ones wonder where the bus driver is and if he’ll receive justice. “They tell us he just walked away with a head injury; they let him get away. They have to find him so he can pay. All these people who died were under his responsibility,” she says, her voice filled with rage mixed with pain.

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