A subway overpass collapsed late Monday in the Mexican capital, sending a train plunging to the ground. At least 23 people were killed, and more …
A subway overpass collapsed late Monday in the Mexican capital, sending a train plunging to the ground. At least 23 people were killed, and more than 70 were injured, officials said. RIGHT NOW Children were among those killed in the train crash, the mayor said. Rescue crews use ladders and a crane to search through the rubble for survivors. In pictures: The train crash and the desperate search for survivors. Mexico City’s metro has been plagued by problems. Video captured the moment of collapse in a hail of falling concrete and sparks. ‘Everyone fell into everyone:’ Witness accounts of the deadly crash. A subway overpass collapsed late Monday in Mexico City, sending the cars of a passenger train plunging to the ground and killing at least 23 people, including children, the city’s mayor said. At least 70 others were injured, officials said, and emergency workers scrambled to a scene where tilted train cars lay amid tangled wires and twisted metal. As dawn approached, a crane was holding one car in the air as emergency workers checked it to see whether any passengers remained trapped. Claudia Sheinbaum, the city’s mayor, told reporters early Tuesday that there were minors among the dead and that 49 people had been transferred to hospitals with injuries. The crash occurred on Line 12 of the subway system near the Olivos Station in southeastern Mexico City, Mexico’s civil protection agency said in a post on Twitter. Local news reports said the accident had occurred between the Olivos and Tezonco stations. The crash occurred about 10:25 p.m., La Jornada newspaper reported. The Associated Press quoted Ms. Sheinbaum as saying that a support beam on the overpass had collapsed as the train went by. “At this moment, we can’t speculate about what happened,” she added. “There has to be a deep investigation, and whoever is responsible has be held responsible.” In the meantime, she said, Line 12 would remain closed as the authorities investigated the cause of the accident. Photos and videos of the crash released by the government showed at least one orange-and-yellow subway car hanging from an overpass. Others showed rescue personnel extracting injured passengers from a tilted subway car by helping them down from ladders. Ms. Sheinbaum said that a motorist in a car trapped by the crash had been rescued alive. Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign minister, called the crash a “terrible tragedy” in a Twitter post late Monday. “Of course, the causes should be investigated and the responsibilities for it defined.” Mexico City Metro warned residents to avoid the area. — Mike Ives and Oscar Lopez Hours after the collapse, rescue workers were still scrambling early Tuesday to free people trapped inside the tangle of crushed metal and collapsed concrete, which was all that still stood at the site where the train overpass had crumbled. Dozens searched carefully among the debris, some using metal ladders to climb through the windows of the train cars to pull people to safety. A number of people were taken from the scene on stretchers as the police, emergency workers and some volunteers worked through the night. The rescues had been halted briefly around midnight as the train dangled precariously, but were restarted after it was secured. A tearful mother, identified only as Elísabet, told the television channel Azteca Noticias that she was searching for her 13 year-old son, who had been out with others in the city center and was on the metro, about to come home.
