Crime & Justice

8 Indicted for deadly metro disaster in Mexico

Mexico City, Jul 20 (EFE).- Eight former municipal officials involved in the construction of the Mexico City metro will be tried in connection with the collapse of an overpass on May 3, 2021, the district attorney’s office said Wednesday.

The accident on Line 12 in the capital’s eastern borough of Tlahuac, just a couple of hundred meters (yards) from the Olivos metro station, caused the train’s final two cars to fall to the street and come to rest in a diagonal “V” shape.

Twenty-six people died and nearly 100 others were injured.

Though the charges include manslaughter, the defendants will remain free pending trial, but they must report in person periodically and are prohibited from having any contact with victims of the accident.

Then accused had “a clear, indubitable responsibility, they had the level of control, the necessary expertise and a broad knowledge of the matter in question,” DA office spokesman Ulises Lara said in a statement.

A number of survivors and victims’ families have filed civil lawsuits in Mexico, while 14 plaintiffs are suing the builders of Line 12 – Mexico’s Ingenieros Civiles y Asociados (ICA), France’s Alstom and Spanish railway manufacturer CAF – in the United States.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said in May that reconstruction work began on Feb. 14 and was on course to be completed by year’s end.

The columns and structure of the entire six-kilometer (3.7-mile) elevated portion of Line 12 will be reinforced with elements such as struts and tensors, according to a report by the mayor’s office.

Sheinbaum said that service would be re-established as soon as possible in light of the metro’s importance to residents of Tlahuac.

EFE csr/dr

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