The head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, reported that a new expert opinion will have to be hired to determine the causes of the collapse of the elevated section of Line 12 of the capital’s Metro, which occurred on May 3, 2021 and which caused the death 26 people and more than a hundred wounded.
“Not only is this trial (which the capital government initiated through civil and perhaps also criminal proceedings against the Norwegian firm DNV hired to carry out the independent expert opinion), but we are calling a third party, an engineer, recognized engineers to do this evaluation and that the whole truth be presented; and, at the same time, (we have) the opinion of the Attorney General’s Office, which has already clearly established what the causes (of the collapse) were.”
To a specific question about whether the government he heads would hire another company to carry out a new independent expert opinion, he answered yes.
“A group of quality engineers is being sought,” he assured.
And that everything that “is being done will be “public”.
He recalled that there is a group of “seven experts, the best structural engineers in Mexico, who are doing the Executive Project for the rehabilitation (of the so-called Golden Line) and all of this is going to be public, what they found, how it was found and how it is being rehabilitated”.
insist on politicization
In a collective interview, Sheinbaum reiterated that his government will not allow the DNV company to politicize the issue of the collapse of Line 12 with the delivery of the third and last report of its expert opinion, which was carried out by DNV Mexico and therefore “does not have quality, it is biased and does not meet the conditions (techniques of the Norwegian firm, which were met in reports one and two)”.
When asked about what it responded to DNV, which reported that it had already delivered its third report to the capital authorities and that it was not at fault, it replied:
“No, well, they did and that is why there is a termination of the contract and that is why there is a civil lawsuit, for now; and, it has to be determined, it is part of a trial.
“What we are not going to allow is that a report is delivered that does not have quality, that is tendentious and that does not meet the conditions and that, in addition, ends up politicizing it; that’s actually what happened. That is, only the fact of the lawyer who represents them. So, that is our position and we defend that, because the most important thing here is the truth of what happened.”
They claim breach of contract
Yesterday, the Secretary of Mobility of the CDMX, Andrés Lajous, indicated in an interview with Grupo Formula that in the third DNV report the lack of maintenance was “sown” as part of the causes of the collapse of a part of the elevated section of Line 12 , which is why the expert opinion was rejected.
The capital official maintained that the third installment of the expert opinion did not comply with what was agreed in the contract between the CDMX government and the company of Norwegian origin.
“The question is, faced with a design error and faced with a construction problem, such as missing bolts, what does maintenance have to do with it? How do you maintain something that no one is telling you is poorly designed? The design error is discovered once the collapse happens,” he stated.