A partially collapsed metro overpass which occurred at about 10.30pm on Monday near the Los Olivos metro station on the metro’s Line 12, also known as the Gold Line has claimed at least 23 lives in Mexico City, the Mexican capital. The elevated track was around 5 meters (16 feet) above the ground. Emergency workers scrambled to the scene. Floodlights illuminated the collapsed bridge as search and rescue teams tried to find survivors in the rubble. Footage from security cameras showed the overpass collapsing on to a busy thoroughfare as a pair of wagons fell on to passing traffic. Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, said via Twitter that at least 65 people had been taken to hospital, some in serious condition. Rescue efforts were briefly interrupted at midnight because the partially hanging train was very weak and a crane had to be brought in. There were still people trapped inside the train.
By sunrise on Tuesday, the search for survivors had largely turned into a recovery operation, with four of the victims’ bodies still trapped in the wreckage. Hundreds of police officers and firefighters cordoned off the scene on Tuesday morning. “What happened today with the metro is a terrible tragedy. My solidarity with the victims and their families,” the foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said. He was mayor of the capital when Line 12 was constructed. The metro Linea 12 has a history. It was opened in 2012. In 2014, 11 of the 20 stations were closed for safety reasons. More than 30km of tracks were later replaced plus columns for elevated portions of the metro line were damaged in a September 2017 earthquake. The Mexico City Metro is one of the largest and busiest metro train networks in the world. It served 1.655 billion passengers in 2019.
