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The subway in Buenos Aires demands that of Madrid for more than US $ 16 million after selling trains with asbestos

2019-10-22T22:58:51.538Z


Sbase, the public company that operates the subway of the Argentine capital, demands that the Spanish pay them 14,978,395.9 euros, equivalent to more than US $ 16.7 million, in addition to the procedural costs ...


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(CNN Spanish) - The authorities of the Buenos Aires subway filed a civil suit Tuesday for damages against the Madrid Metro for selling them - knowingly - second-hand trains with asbestos or asbestos, a carcinogenic and prohibited mineral. The demand is recorded in the judicial records of the Spanish capital.

Sbase, the public company that operates the subway in the Argentine capital, demands that the Spanish pay them 14,978,395.9 euros, equivalent to more than US $ 16.7 million, in addition to the procedural costs, according to the demand. He also wants the Madrid Metro to leave them unscathed in the procedures that are followed in Buenos Aires.

CNN contacted the spokesperson for the Madrid Metro but has not yet received an answer about the legal action taken by the Argentine public company. In 2018, the company's authorities held before the Madrid Assembly that there was no risk for workers or passengers on those trains because the harmful material was encapsulated. Before CNN consultations, they declined to comment on this point.

The Subway - as the subway network of Buenos Aires is known - established the amount of the demand through a expertise conducted by technicians from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), which determined the cost and adaptation of the CAF 5000 in the Buenos Aires subway, according to the presentation.

The trains were acquired during the management of the then head of the Government of Buenos Aires and current president, Mauricio Macri. In February 2018, it came to light that they contained this dangerous substance. Although the subway acquired 6 trains for a total of 36 wagons, the demand is for 24 CAF 5000 wagons.

The Buenos Aires subway also clarified in the lawsuit that in the detailed tests he designed for the sale of trains there was not a single reference to the presence of this carcinogenic mineral. CNN contacted the spokesperson for Macri, who sent the query to the subway authorities.

Currently, at least eleven workers in the mechanical workshops of this line of the Buenos Aires subway have been diagnosed with pleural plaques in their lungs, a condition caused by asbestos, according to Buenos Aires authorities. In the civil lawsuit, the Buenos Aires subway maintains that the Madrid Metro knew that the wagons were not "fit" to be commercialized and placed at the service of the public.

Regarding the responsibility of the subway authorities, in Sbase they argue that “under no circumstances” could they consider that the Madrid Metro was selling them “contaminated equipment”, in violation of the regulations in force both in Spain and in the European Union. The Buenos Aires authorities said they have no plans to file a criminal complaint with the Madrid Metro.

The president of Sbase (Subte de Buenos Aires), Eduardo De Montmollin, acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the plans of the wagons acquired from Spain indicated the presence of this carcinogenic substance, but said that the Argentine authorities did not warn him.

"It is true that there is documentation that says that but there was no way to affirm or validate whether this was indeed true or not," said the head of the public company. “I cannot guarantee that each and every page of the technical manuals has been read. But we assumed that if the documentation contained something, the Madrid Metro had already taken sides, had taken action and that what they were selling to us, they were in a position to sell it, ”De Montmollin said in an interview with CNN.

In Sbase they told CNN that “the demand has to do with civil implications, derived from the fact that Metro de Madrid sold wagons with asbestos without expressly warning of it. The state company should have worked within the framework of Spanish regulations that since 2001 prohibit the commercialization of asbestos equipment ”.

In addition, the Buenos Aires authorities indicate that Metro did not remove or extract asbestos from the trains before selling them. They also affirm that the Metro should have carried out complementary work together with the sale of the equipment.

In the lawsuit, the Buenos Aires authorities also stressed that the Madrid Metro would have acted "as if the teams did not have asbestos", but "did not ignore it or could not ignore" the risk that meant both for users and workers the Buenos Aires subway.

AsbestosMeterSubte

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-10-22

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