The authorities in charge of maintaining the Mexico City Metro in optimal conditions have decided to invest 10 million pesos to shore up the elevated section of Line 9 at the arrival of the Pantitlán terminal.
In a tour of the place, the Secretary of Works and Services of the capital's administration, Jesús Esteva, explained that as a result of an inspection carried out by the Institute for Construction Safety 10 months ago, seven geotechnical surveys were carried out and two analyzes to measure the resistance of the structure before an earthquake.
The capital's government rules out, at least for now, reinforcing the columns affected by the collapse, as the supervisor's report had recommended.
“We are carrying out work to increase the safety conditions in the supports of one of the clearings, a clearing that presents differential subsidence.
At the time, a request was made to the Institute for Construction Safety to carry out an inspection, the institute makes a visual inspection of the site and makes a series of recommendations”, Esteva affirms in an interview with EL PAÍS.
Union of beams where the Ministry of Works and Services will place the props. Nadya Murillo
The Secretary of Works and Services states that according to the latest measurements made to the section, the difference in subsidence between the first and second support is no longer increasing, for which reason he considers that it is not necessary to re-create, as he had previously recommended. the institute when inspecting said section in April of last year.
“If you want to recover the levels again, yes [it will be restarted].
If we observe that the deformations are increasing, then we have to start the cementing so that everything behaves evenly and recovers some of the deformation it has”, he states.
The director of the Institute for Construction Safety, Renato Berrón, points out that the collapse is caused by a natural settlement in the lake region of Mexico City.
"The main problem with this movement is that these girders lose their support, that problem is solved and the safety of this bridge is greatly solved," he asserts.
Both officials trust the solution and ensure that there is no problem with increasing the number of trains between the Pantitlán and Puebla stations, as the institute had recommended when carrying out the first inspection of the section.
In a letter sent on April 12, 2022 to the Ministry of Works and Services, the Institute for Construction Safety in the capital of Mexico warned that the structure of the brown line in that area presented deformations and was compromised.
In the document obtained by EL PAÍS via transparency, the decentralized body to the Ministry of Works and Services carry out "urgently and immediately" at least nine measures to mitigate risks, otherwise it warns that "there could be a situation high-risk".
Among the actions, he listed carrying out soil mechanics studies, numerical analysis of the structure, not increasing train runs, shoring up in case of subsidence, analyzing the possibility of re-building and doing topographic monitoring every 15 days.
Line 9, built 36 years ago, is one of the four lines of the Mexico City subway that has an elevated section, along with Line B, Line 4 and Line 12. A part of the latter collapsed in May 2021, leaving 27 dead and more than 70 injured.
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