Residents say Mexico's metro already had problems 1:35
(CNN Spanish) -
Line 12 of the Mexico City metro, in which an elevated section collapsed on Monday, has a history of irregularities in its construction, operation and maintenance in which consequences that are now fatal have been warned.
The so-called “golden line” is the most recent infrastructure of the subway that connects the east with the west of the capital of Mexico, but since its conception in 2007, the political actors and companies that were part of its construction have been questioned for their constant failures, as reported by the Investigative Commission of the Legislative Assembly of Line 12 of the STC Metro.
Monday's fatal accident is the biggest consequence, so far, of the work whose bidding agreement reached US $ 871 million (17.583 million Mexican pesos), but at its inauguration, 10 months after the agreement, it added another US $ 126 million (2,538 million Mexican pesos), according to figures from the Investigative Commission.
The 20-station line —although 23 stations were originally planned— was built by the consortium made up of Mexican companies ICA, the largest engineering company in the country, which has built several of the metro lines, and Carso Infraestructura y Construcción, a signature of the billionaire Carlos Slim, as well as Alstom Mexicana, a subsidiary of the French company Alstom specialized in the manufacture of trains, as indicated by the Investigative Commission.
Since before its inauguration, in October 2012, when the head of the Government of Mexico City was Marcelo Ebrard, currently Chancellor, the federal government made dozens of observations about the work, such as the choice of rail rolling instead of pneumatic.
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An elevated section of the Mexico City subway collapsed this Monday night, causing the fall of some cars with passengers inside.
(Photo by Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
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The head of government of the country's capital, Claudia Sheinbaum, reported that so far there have been 23 dead and 65 injured.
(Photo by PEDRO PARDO / AFP via Getty Images)
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Emergency services, the army and civil protection work there.
(Photo by Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
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The authorities have set up several hospitals and the search services are asking citizens to stay up to date while the victims are identified.
(Photo by Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
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The incident occurred on Line 12 of the subway, which runs from west to east in the southern area of the country's capital.
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The line was inaugurated in 2012, and in 2014 a section had to be closed for maintenance.
(Photo by PEDRO PARDO / AFP via Getty Images)
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The line was in operation until March 2014, when a section was suspended due to the fact that the trains were not compatible with the tracks, so the change works were carried out for 11 months.
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The construction consortium told federal legislators at the time that it communicated to the Collective Transportation System and Metro Project, the state body in charge of the project, of 27 evidences on the problem of undulating wear of the rails and the difference in the purchase of trains from those originally raised since December 13, 2013.
Ebrard told deputies separately that said report was inaccurate and “there is no reason and it does not seem fair to mention that the reason why the work fails is due to irregularities and corruption, when the autonomous oversight body of the Congress of the Union it says otherwise ”.
The work had been certified by a consortium made up of the companies DB International GmbH, ILF Beratende Ingenieure and TUV-SUD Rail GmbH.
What happened?
According to the Congress of Mexico City, irregularities were committed in the planning and construction and even failures in the layout.
The images of great tragedies in meters in history 0:54
"Until an expert report is made, we cannot know what happened ... we cannot speculate," said the head of Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaun, at a press conference this Tuesday after the accident that left 24 dead and 79 wounded.
"I think it was a failure of the civil works," said the leader of the National Union of Workers of the Collective Transport System, Fernando Espino, to Radio Fórmula this Tuesday.
On September 19, 2017, an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 caused the closure of six stations on Line 12, evidencing doubts about the solidity of the work, since a train derailed.
The result of a review revealed that a column was damaged in the section that collapsed the day before, according to a report from the metro.
Carso Infraestructura y Construcción said through a spokesperson in a phone call that "it will wait for the official expert opinion", while "showing solidarity with the families of the deceased, as well as with the people who were injured and with their families."
Accident
