The concrete welcome archway at the entrance to Coatzintla municipality in Veracruz came down with a huge crash Tuesday, narrowly missing vehicles that were on the highway beneath it at the time. There were no casualties.
Recent heavy rains and intense wind in the area are thought to have been the final straw for the structure, whose collapse was captured on video. The video, published on Twitter, zooms in to several places on the arch before its collapse where water appears to have seeped inside the structure, weakening it from within. Authorities reported after the collapse that the interior iron structure had rusted from the moisture.
The archway was designed and built in 2010 and bore stone reliefs by plastic artist Teodoro Cano Garcia. Residents have complained about pieces of the structure falling on to the roadway.
The incident blocked traffic in both directions on the Coatzintla-Martínez highway in the north of the state and traffic coming in and out of the municipality was redirected to the Bicentenario roadway.
#PozaRica #Coatzintla Cae Arco sobre la carretera Poza Rica- Coatzintla, a la altura del panteón, obstruye ambos sentidos. Vialidad cerrada. pic.twitter.com/3Ako1dTReg
— Vialidad Xalapa VX😷💞🌎 (@VialidadXalapa) August 16, 2022
With reports from Milenio and La Jornada
