According to project coordinator Adiel Estrada, the railroad has created 800 direct jobs and some 2,400 indirect ones—a much-needed injection for a largely impoverished part of the country
A worker supervises construction work of a wave breaker in the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Image: Claudio Cruz / AFP
At Mexico's narrowest point, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the government is building a railway rival to the Panama Canal with promises of economic bounty but amid fears of environmental and social harm.
The Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes already dreamed of such a crossing for humans and goods in the 16th century, but most plans came to naught and a prior, rudimentary connection was all but abandoned with the opening of the canal cutting through Panama in 1914.