A speeding rail car on a rollercoaster flipped over mid-ride at a Mexican amusement park on Saturday, Sept. 28, killing two people and injuring two others.
The Mexico City attorney general’s office said two men aged 18 and 21 died of head and other injuries when the last car on the coaster derailed at the La Feria amusement park. Two women were hurt.
Preliminary investigations indicate a mechanical failure caused the car to come loose and fall from a height of 10 meters (33 feet) above the ground, said Ulises Lara López, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
Authorities are treating the accident as a case of negligent homicide.
Video circulating on social media showed the car flipping nearly upside down and smashing into a metal loop on the rollercoaster. Images from the aftermath showed first responders attending victims and a single metal rail car on the ground, on its side, near blood stains.
The towering Quimera coaster in Chapultepec Park can be seen from afar in the capital, its three nearly vertical yellow and red loops visible from a major highway. The Feria park closed following the accident.
A vendor at the park told local news outlet El Universal that she saw a passenger thrown from the car, and that other riders hit their heads as the coaster advanced at high speed while dragging the flailing, final car.
The fair posted a message to its Facebook page Saturday saying it “deeply regrets the terrible accident that occurred,” and is providing support to those affected.
“Together with authorities, we are carrying out the pertinent investigations,” the statement said.
Mexico’s Secretariat for Integral Management and Risk told Reuters, “This is now in the hands of the Prosecutors’ Office who have already opened inquiries for an investigation into what happened, how did it happened, who is responsible and how to proceed moving forward.”
The decades-old coaster, like many rides in La Feria, was featured at other parks around the world before finding a home in Mexico City.
44 Bodies Found in Well in Mexico
At least 44 bodies stuffed in about 100 black bags were identified by Mexican officials after they were discovered several weeks ago, officials said.
The remains were discovered on Sept. 3 in a well near the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco State after residents reported a foul odor, reported the BBC.
“It saddens me to speak in this way, but society has a right to know what is happening,” Jalisco security cabinet chief Macedonio Tamez Guajardo told Mexican news website Milenio.
Elaborating on the grisly discovery, Guajardo said the bodies were in various states of decomposition. The Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences said on Sept. 14 that 44 people have been identified, Fox News reported.
The CNN Wire and Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
