Children among victims after Mexico City metro overpass collapses on road and kills 23
ITV News US Correspondent Emma Murphy has the latest on the search for the missing
At least 23 people, including children, have been killed in Mexico after part of a metro overpass collapsed, sending a subway carriage plunging onto a busy road.
The incident in Mexico city, the country's capital, left 70 injured, city mayor Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed. 49 of those hurt have been hospitalised, while seven are in serious condition and undergoing surgery. Ms Sheinbaum added that people were still trapped inside the train, which was split in two and suspended above the ground.
“There are unfortunately children among the dead,” Ms Sheinbaum said, without specifying how many. ,Footage showed a car trapped under rubble, with dozens of rescuers searching through wreckage from the collapsed structure. The overpass was about five metres above the road in southern Mexico City.
Crowds of concerned residents were at the scene
“A support beam gave way,” Sheinbaum explained, adding that the beam collapsed just as the train passed over it.
Because the partially dangling train was “very weak”, rescue efforts were briefly paused at midnight and a crane had to be brought in.
“We don’t know if they are alive,” Sheinbaum said of the people trapped inside the subway car.
It is not known whether most of the dead were on the subway cars, or whether they were pedestrians or motorists caught below.
Hundreds of police and firefighters cordoned off the site in the southern borough of Tlahuac. Meanwhile, desperate friends and relatives of those thought to be on the train gathered outside the security perimeter.
Oscar López, 26, was searching for his friend, Adriana Salas, also 26. Six months pregnant, she took the subway home from work when her phone stopped answering.
López said:“We lost contact with her, at 10:50 pm, there was literally no more contact”.
The collapse occurred on the newest of the Mexico City subway’s lines, Line 12, which stretches far into the city’s southside.
Like many of the city’s dozen subway lines, it runs underground through more central areas of the city. It then runs on elevated, pre-formed concrete structures on the city’s outskirts.
Ms Sheinbaum said an "in-depth" investigation and structural review of Line 12 has begun.
The collapse could represent a major blow the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. He was Mexico City mayor from 2006 to 2012, when the Line 12 was built. Questions about the quality of the construction emerged soon after he left office as mayor.
Ebrard wrote in his Twitter account, “What happened today on the Metro is a terrible tragedy.”
“Of course the causes should be investigated and those responsible should be identified,” he wrote.
“I repeat that I am entirely at the disposition of authorities to contribute in whatever way is necessary.”
The Mexico City metro, one of the largest and busiest in the world, has had at least two serious accidents since it was built half a century ago.
In March of last year, a collision between two trains at the Tacubaya station left one passenger dead, injuring 41 people.
In 2015, a train that did not stop on time crashed into another at the Oceania station, injuring 12 people.