Twenty-two people remain hospitalized after sustaining injuries in a Mexico City metro accident that claimed the life of one woman on Saturday, authorities said Sunday.
Two trains traveling in the same direction on Line 3 of the subway system collided Saturday morning between the Potrero and La Raza stations north of the historic center.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday that one woman was killed and 57 people with injuries were taken to seven different hospitals. A National Autonomous University (UNAM) press release identified the deceased woman as Yaretzi Adriana Hernández Fragoso, 25. She studied visual arts at the university’s School of Arts and Design.
Ernesto Alvarado, the Mexico City government’s commissioner for assistance for victims, told a press conference Sunday that a total of 106 people were hospitalized for injuries sustained in the crash.
“From the information collected yesterday [Saturday] and this morning I can report that 57 people were transported to hospitals by ambulance and 49 arrived by their own means. … Until now, 84 people have been discharged and 22 remain hospitalized, all of them in stable condition,” Alvarado said.
Among the injured is the driver of a train that collided with the rear of another train traveling on Line 3, which runs between the Universidad station at the UNAM in the capital’s south and the Indios Verdes station in the northern borough of Gustavo A. Madero.
The driver, who was initially reported in serious condition, was one of four people trapped in wreckage for some time after the accident occurred just after 9 a.m. Saturday. Emergency services, police, the army and the National Guard responded to the accident.
“There was a terrible collision and everyone went flying,” Mariela Casasola, a train passenger, told the Reforma newspaper.
“The lights went out and a lot of smoke started coming out, people started shouting.”
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office is conducting an investigation to establish the cause of the accident between the Potrero and La Raza stations, where, according to metro chief Guillermo Calderón, signaling problems were detected Friday and a low-speed protocol was consequently implemented.
Calderón said Sunday that the subway system’s deputy director of operations had been dismissed in light of the accident. Sheinbaum said her government’s priority is attending to the victims, and pledged that justice will be served.
The fatal crash came 20 months after an accident on Line 12 — the metro system’s newest — claimed the lives of 26 people. Normal service on Line 3 was scheduled to resume Monday morning.
Some citizens, including opposition politicians, blame Sheinbaum — a presidential aspirant — for the accident, and the mayor was dubbed a murderer by attendees of a protest Saturday night. Sheinbaum rejected claims that the metro system doesn’t have sufficient funding.
Denise Dresser, a political analyst and columnist, said on Twitter that the mayor, the ruling Morena party and the federal government can’t blame “inherited deficiencies” for the latest metro tragedy.
“The left has governed Mexico City since 1997. [There have been] years of disinvestment, deficient maintenance [and] priorities elsewhere. Take responsibility,” she wrote.
With reports from El Economista, El Financiero, BBC, Milenio and El Universal
