March 29, 2024

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Mexico City Subway Collapse Report Inquiry Highlights Construction Flaws

MEXICO CITY—The collapse of an elevated part of Mexico City’s subway previous thirty day period that killed 26 individuals and left dozens extra injured was prompted by “structural flaws” in its design, in accordance to a preliminary inquiry by an impartial agency unveiled Wednesday.

Line 12 of Mexico’s City’s subway was designed by a team of companies that included

Grupo Carso,

which is owned by Mexican billionaire

Carlos Trim.

The findings on Mexico’s worst subway accident in 45 several years also put Mexico’s overseas minister

Marcelo Ebrard

in the spotlight, as he served as Mexico City mayor throughout the design of the line.

Flaws in design included the absence of bolts, poorly executed or unfinished soldering, loss of shape on beams and the use of diverse types of concrete, in accordance to the report by Norwegian consulting agency DNV.

Mexico City Mayor

Claudia Sheinbaum

said the subway line, which has been shut considering that the collapse, will be repaired to fortify its framework. Two extra, extra entire studies will be unveiled in the coming months, she said.

It was not straight away apparent irrespective of whether authorities would impose fines or other sanctions on the design corporations. Line 12 was designed by a team formed by Grupo Carso’s design device Cicsa, Mexican design corporation ICA and France’s

Alstom.

Ms. Sheinbaum said she would be in speak to with the design corporations to rebuild the line, without the need of featuring extra specifics.

Grupo Carso said Cicsa will not remark till the final report is unveiled. ICA and Alstom did not straight away react to requests for remark.

A team of relations of the victims have employed a U.S. regulation agency to sue the design companies in the U.S. and desire hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation. Mexico City authorities have said they would compensate relations with $32,000 for every family.

The town lawyer general’s office environment has also opened an inquiry into the accident.

The line was beset by structural and specialized concerns considering that it was inaugurated in 2012. A worker taken out debris times soon after the collapse.



Image:

Marco Ugarte/Connected Push

Analysts said the findings could damage Mr. Ebrard’s prospects of profitable the candidacy for the ruling Morena party for the 2024 presidential elections to thrive President

Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“This report basically places most of the blame for the tragedy on Ebrard’s administration,” said Gustavo López Montiel, a political scientist at Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey college. “It’s likely to be pretty difficult for him to get better from this.”

Mr. Ebrard said on Wednesday that he supports all inquiries on the accident. He said that the final report ought to also involve a evaluate of the final decision-producing approach for the design, supervision and upkeep finished on the line soon after he left office environment.

The subway line was plagued by specialized and structural challenges inside months of its inauguration in late 2012. In 2014, the town government shut the elevated stretch for twenty months to recondition pieces of the rails. A yr later, a report warned that the line had really serious design flaws.

Authorities are investigating the cause of a collapse on an elevated portion of Mexico City’s metro that despatched subway cars plunging toward a hectic boulevard late Monday, killing at minimum 24 individuals and injuring numerous other individuals. Image: Luis Cortes/Reuters

More mend get the job done was finished on the overhead constructions pursuing the devastating earthquake of September 2017, and citizens had extra not long ago warned of what appeared to be visible challenges with the subway line.

Mexico’s congressional audit office environment also discovered numerous irregularities, from design faults and lousy workmanship to undue payments to contractors and works that have been hardly ever carried out, in various audits carried out in between 2009 and 2019, information demonstrate.

A 2015 report drawn up by the Mexico City legislature concluded that the challenge had “important flaws in design and planning.” The report said that the spending plan for the Metro line was slash from $1.9 billion to $1.seven billion, financial savings that “seriously impacted the progress of the works.”

That report also said the line had been rapidly inaugurated in Oct 2012, a thirty day period in advance of Mr. Ebrard’s time period as mayor finished, with works nonetheless incomplete.

The actuality that the line was presently operating in advance of all works have been accomplished impacted the proper execution and supervision of rail traces, soldering and the repairing of screws, in accordance to the report.

Produce to Juan Montes at [email protected]

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