World
27 dead after Metro overpass collapses in Mexico City
At least 27 people have been killed and more than 70 injured after a subway overpass collapsed onto a busy road in the city’s southeast.
As per International news outlets, the crash occurred at 10:22 p.m. on one of the city’s newest stretches of track, Line 12, which was inaugurated in 2012. The accident took place when a metro train was passing through a rail bridge in the Mexican capital and the channel suddenly collapsed onto a busy highway below.
According to the officials, the train was on the track at the time of the accident while the coaches of the train fell to the ground due to the track breaking.
Media reports state that the upper part of the metro rail track partially collapsed, causing debris and some train carriages to fall on the road below.
International broadcasters claimed that some cars parked at the spot where the train coaches fell were also hit and buried under the rubble.
City Mayor Claudia Shane Bam said in a tweet after visiting the crash site, "Firefighters and the Public Safety Department are working together. The injured are being treated at several hospitals and more information will be provided soon.”
The beam collapsed just as the train passed over it, she added.
Speaking at a news conference alongside the mayor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered his condolences to the relatives of the victims and said that "nothing would be hidden" from the Mexican people.
Emergency teams worked through the night to remove people dead and alive from the scene. By morning, Mexican authorities confirmed that there were no more bodies as they began to remove the wreckage.
This is the deadliest incident in decades in the city's metro system, one of the busiest in the world.
It's unclear whether the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked Mexico in 2017 also caused damages that contributed to the collapse.