At least 23 dead after Mexico City subway overpass collapses
A Mexico City subway train overpass collapsed onto a busy road below on Monday night, killing at least 23 people, including children, authorities said. More than 60 people were injured.
Photos and video from the scene showed mangled train cars hanging from the crumbled overpass and rescue personnel searching and transporting the injured on stretchers.
“A support beam gave way,” Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said at the scene. She said the beam collapsed just as the train passed over it. The accident occurred on Line 12 near the Olivos station in the southeast of the city around 10:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m. ET).
The mayor, wearing a hard hat and face mask, told reporters at the site that 65 people had been taken to hospitals, and seven were in serious condition.
Sheinbaum earlier said that one of the victims was in a car under the collapsed overpass and was alive at a hospital.
A crane was being used to hold up the train so rescue workers could continue to work, she said. Of the dead, some are children, Sheinbaum said without specifying a number.
Alfonso, a local resident, told NBC’s sister network Telemundo that he had heard a screeching noise on Monday night. “I even thought that it was a car that had collided around here, but no, I came out and saw the scene,” he said.
As Mexico’s civil protection agency started sharing lists of the injured, friends and relatives of the missing waited for more news of their loved ones, but many feared the worst.
Gisela del Ocaso, 43, told Telemundo she was looking for her husband, Miguel Angel Espinosa Flores, who was on board the train.
Del Ocaso got to the scene within 30 minutes of the collapse and had heard no news of her husband since. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “We are desperate. I have two children.”
Sheinbaum called for an investigation into the incident.
“If there’s a need for an external investigation, there will be one,” Sheinbaum said. “We will get to the truth, and we will get justice.”
Mexico’s subway system is among the busiest in the world.
Line 12 was built when Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard was Mexico City’s mayor.
“What happened today in the metro is a terrible tragedy. My solidarity with the victims and their families,” Ebrard tweeted.
“Of course we need to investigate cause and determine responsibility. I reiterate to all authorities my complete willingness to contribute to everything necessary,” he wrote
