Mexico City subway trains collide, killing 1, injuring 41

A two-train subway collision in Mexico City killed a man, injured 41 people and disrupted service Wednesday on the bustling metro system serving this megalopolis of over 20 million people.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said via Twitter that one of the trains apparently reversed into the other by accident the previous night, shortly before midnight.

Twenty-five of the injured were treated at the scene, and the other 16 were taken to hospitals, Sheinbaum said. All the injuries were light to medium and not life-threatening.

Metro authorities said the two drivers of the trains were among those hurt.

Images of the accident published in local media showed wrecked subway cars derailed in the Tacubaya underground station, and rescuers carrying people away.

Metro director Florencia Serrana said there would be an outside investigation into the crash.

The Mexico City Metro system, one of the world's largest and most transited, has seen at least two serious accidents since it opened five decades ago.

In 2015 a train failed to brake in time and smashed into another at the Oceania station in the city's north, injuring 12 people. Authorities later blamed double human error.

In the most serious incident, two trains collided at the Viaducto station in 1975, killing at least 31 and injuring more than 70, according to the national newspaper El Universal.

Tacubaya is a key station for the Metro system, with three of its 11 lines intersecting there, and there were reports of system disruptions during the Wednesday morning commute.

Metro authorities said service on Line 1 would be reduced throughout the day with Tacubaya and a neighboring station out of action and 45 buses deployed to bridge the gap of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

Mexico's Metro system transported more than 1.6 billion passengers in 2018, according to official figures, or about 4.4 million per day.