Elevated Metro overpass falls, killing at least 24
MEXICO CITY — An elevated section of the Mexico City Metro collapsed and sent the train plunging toward a busy boulevard late Monday, killing at least 24 people and injuring at least 77, city officials said.
Rescuers found four bodies inside a rail car that was dangling from the overpass but were unable to remove them. It was not clear if those dead were included among the toll of 24. A crane carefully lowered the car to the ground Tuesday.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said one of the concrete beams collapsed as a train passed over it about 10:30 p.m. in one of the deadliest episodes in the history of the city’s subway system, which is among the world’s busiest.
Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard called the collapse “the most terrible accident we have ever had in mass transportation.” Ebrard was Mexico City’s mayor from 2006 to 2012, when the affected line was built.
“The cause of the collapse of the beam must be established through an expert investigation,” Sheinbaum said.
Earlier, she said someone had been pulled alive from a car on the road. She said 77 injured were hospitalized, adding that children were among the dead.
The overpass was about 16 feet above the road in the borough of Tlahuac, but the train ran above a concrete median strip, which apparently lessened the casualties among motorists.
The Mexico City Metro — which is among the world’s cheapest — with tickets costing about 25 cents — has had at least three serious accidents since its inauguration half a century ago. In March 2020, a collision between two trains at the Tacubaya station left one passenger dead and injured 41. In 2015, a train that did not stop on time crashed into another at the Oceania station, injuring 12. In October 1975, at least 26 people were killed in a metro accident.
Hundreds of police officers and firefighters cordoned off the scene as desperate friends and relatives of people believed to be on the train gathered.
It was not clear whether a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in 2017 could have affected the subway line. There were reports that cracks had appeared in the base of at least one of the columns that support the elevated track following that quake.
The line was closed Tuesday and hundreds of buses were called in. Thousands in surrounding neighborhoods lined up before dawn to catch the buses for work.