At least 20 people were killed and about 70 others injured when a subway overpass crashed onto a street in Mexico City on Monday evening.
The accident, which occurred around 10:30 p.m. local time, trapped cars under rubble and passengers in wagons hanging in midair. Video on social media and Mexico TV showed. Emergency teams were working to recover these passengers.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said 49 of the injured had been hospitalized, seven were in serious condition and would be operated on.
“Unfortunately there are children among the dead,” said Sheinbaum, without specifying how many.
According to the Associated Press, the flyover was about 16 feet above the road in the southern Tláhuac neighborhood, but the train passed over a concrete median, which apparently reduced losses among motorists on the road below.
“One support beam gave way,” Sheinbaum said, adding that the beam collapsed when the train passed over it.
The Associated Press also reported that rescue efforts were briefly interrupted at midnight because the partially hanging train was “very weak” and a crane had to be brought in. There were still people trapped in the train, but “we don’t know if they are.” alive, “said Sheinbaum.
The city’s comprehensive agency for risk management and disaster control said on twitter that the accident violated 70 in a provisional toll.
Alfonso Suárez del Real, secretary of the government of Mexico City, told Milenio Television that the injured were being taken to hospitals. Facebook groups had already started compiling lists of the injured early Tuesday.
Hundreds of police and firefighters cordoned off the scene in the southern Tlahuac district as desperate friends and relatives of people believed to be on the trains gathered outside the security area, AP reported.
Oscar López, 26, was looking for his girlfriend Adriana Salas, 26. Six months pregnant, she took the subway and returned from her job as a dentist when her phone stopped answering in the accident.
“We lost contact with her, at 10:50 p.m. there was literally no contact,” López told AP.
Sheinbaum said on twitter that she rushed to the area where videos and photos showed at least one broken train.
“Firefighters, public safety workers work,” she tweeted. “Visit different hospitals.”
The accident occurred on subway line 12, the construction of which was plagued by complaints and allegations of irregularities. According to ReutersThe line was built when Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard was the city’s mayor.
“What happened to the metro today is a terrible tragedy. My solidarity with the victims and their families.” Ebrard said on Twitter. “The causes need to be investigated and responsibilities defined. I affirm that I am available to the authorities to help with any questions they may need.”
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Every day, at least four million people use the subway system in Mexico City, which is the second largest in America after New York City The New York Times.
The Times also reported that one man was killed and more than 40 others injured when two subways collided in Mexico City in March 2020. Just five years earlier in 2015, a train that did not stop on time crashed into another, injuring 12 people.
Featuring: Charles Ventura, Steve Coogan, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
