Deficiencies in the design, construction and maintenance of Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro were the causes of the collapse of the elevated structure that almost a year ago caused the death of 26 people and more than a hundred injured, concluded a new expert opinion ordered by relatives of the victims.
“I can affirm that this structure collapses due to design deficiencies, construction deficiencies and deficiencies in corrective decision-making emanating from the maintenance manuals,” said Tomás Andrade.
The engineer-architect, graduated from the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) and member of the group of expert advisors of the Bearr law firm, with 30 years of experience, explained in detail the results of the study on the causes of the tragedy, through a video presented at conference.
In the presence of the relatives of 12 victims, Teófilo Benítez, who represents them as a lawyer, reported that they will demand “the demolition of the entire elevated section out of mistrust, because they already deceived us once… because nothing has ever been done for the citizens. The government has never seen that there are more victims, that they are not just those who were in the collapse.
He assured that his clients do not demand the payment of compensation, but demand to do everything necessary to prevent another tragedy from happening.
In the same way, he confirmed that at the hearing on May 2, a reclassification of the crimes of injury and manslaughter will be requested.
Expert Andrade warned that it is very important to highlight all the failures that led to the collapse because “it is likely that another tragedy could happen in other sections if the historical reports of Line 12 are not reviewed.”
“Shear bolts were scarce; Of 680 that the structure should have had, only 43% could be placed because the holes in the slabs did not coincide with those of the metal beam and of that percentage, 85% was poorly placed, ”he concluded.