Mexico promises justice after metro train collapse kills 24

MEXICO CITY, May 5 ------ Mexico will punish those responsible for an overpass collapse that killed at least 24 people and injured dozens when a train on Mexico City’s newest metro line plunged onto a busy road below, the government said on Tuesday. Accompanied by officials involved in the construction and maintenance of the elevated metro line that collapsed, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the investigation should be done quickly and that nothing should be hidden from the public.

“There’s no impunity for anyone,” he told a news conference. The city has been governed since the turn of the century by former mayor Lopez Obrador and his allies. The crash has raised wider questions about safety on one of the world’s busiest metro systems, which carries millions of people daily across an urban sprawl home to over 20 million people. Firefighters using heavy chains to stabilize the site pulled bodies and survivors from the wreckage before lowering one dangling carriage onto a truck in the afternoon. Some 79 people were injured, including three children, authorities said.

Video on social media showed the moment when the overpass suddenly plummeted onto a stream of cars near the Olivos station in the southeast of the city at around 10:30 p.m. (0330 GMT on Tuesday), sending up clouds of dust and sparks. Monserrat, 26, said she was at the back of the train wagon when she heard a loud noise and the lights went out. “Everybody screamed and we fell on top of each other,” she told Mexican radio, speaking from the Belisario Dominguez hospital where she was receiving treatment for an injured rib.

Outside hospitals, family members grew frustrated waiting for information on relatives, including some who were still missing. Angelica Cruz Camino, 31, said she had not heard from her husband since he was on his way home from work around 10:30 pm on Monday. She visited several hospitals and was told all victims were identified but she still had not located him by Tuesday afternoon. “I called and called but he wasn’t answering me. Then it was my son who realized the metro collapsed,” she said outside Tlahuac public hospital. “I cannot find my husband.”

Source: inquirer.net