Mexico: At least 24 people died and almost 80 were injured after the beam of a Mexico City Subway Bridge collapsed on Monday night, Prensa Latina reports.
It is the biggest tragedy in the city since the 2017 earthquake. At around 10:25 p.m. the structure that supported one of the outer sections of subway line 12 collapsed on one of the main arteries southeast of the capital.
“A trab [beam] expired as the train was passing,” explained the head of government of the Mexican capital, Claudia Sheinbaum, from the scene of the event.
This Tuesday morning, Sheinbaunm has asked since the president’s morning conference to avoid speculation and wait for the result of the external expert opinion on the accident.
The president of the Aztec country, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has promised that the investigation will be carried out without hiding anything and “without regard of any kind.” “There is no impunity for anyone,” the president emphasized.
The chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, responsible for the construction of metro line 12 during his tenure as head of the city government (between 2006 and 2012), has assured that he will make himself “available to the authorities.” “Those who act with integrity should not be afraid of anything,” he said.
The rubble collection work began after nine in the morning and almost three hours later the cranes managed to remove one of the wagons, which had been suspended above the subway tracks.
Rescue and civil protection teams have also had to secure the area because there was a risk of another collapse and a convoy falling from a height of more than four meters.
Dozens of relatives of the victims have approached the scene of the incident throughout the night and this morning to try to find out the whereabouts of their relatives. The wounded were transferred to the main hospitals in the area, in Tláhuac and Iztapalapa, in the south of the city.
The collapse of the bridge and two of the convoy wagons on the road has trapped some vehicles and dozens of people.
The accident occurred in a city that has one of the busiest subways in the world: more than 5.5 million people use it every day as the only means of transportation to their homes and jobs.