Bomb at Bridge

One night last week the British-operated Ferrocarril Mexicano's night train from the port of Veracruz to Mexico City took on an oil-burning locomotive at Paso del Macho, began to wind its slow way through the rugged uplands toward the 7,400-ft.-high capital. When the train had rumbled half way across Paso Grande Bridge a dynamite explosion slapped the locomotive and tender against the bank of a 40-ft. ravine, tumbled two wooden sleeping cars to the ravine's bottom. Oil from a tank caught fire and flames engulfed the wreckage. A man pinned in the debris pleaded in vain to be shot as the conflagration approached him. Final count: 13 dead, 18 injured. Investigators discovered 200 yards of double wire leading from the bridge to a detonator.

In one of the cars which teetered on the broken bridge was a group of politicians including Colonel Eduardo Hernandez Chazaro, candidate for Governor of Veracruz. He had no doubt that his own enemies had done the bombing. Convinced that the "intellectual author" of the deed was onetime Dictator Plutarco Elias Calles, ousted from his country last week (see p. 25), President Lazaro Cardenas ordered an investigation to ferret out the actual perpetrators.

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