Allegations of negligent construction and poor oversight began to fly on Monday after deadly building collapses during Mexico’s earthquake on Tuesday last week, as hope faded of finding more survivors of a disaster that killed more than 300 people.
The most high-profile collapse occurred at a school where 19 children were killed last week — a structure which was built illegally on land reserved for housing, local media reports said.
The Mexico City mayor, the minister of education and the top official for the district all traded blame after reports that the Enrique Rebsamen elementary school operated using false documents.
Photo: Reuters
“If confirmed, it would be very serious,” Mexican Minister of Education Aurelio Nuno told TV network Televisa, adding that he had ordered an investigation.
The government has also been criticized by anguished families of people still missing after the magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
“All they tell us are lies,” said Anel Jimenez, 42, whose cousin Martin Estrada, a 30-year-old accountant, was inside a seven-story office building when it collapsed.
“No one from the government has come to show their face. They just send low-profile officials, who always have clean helmets and shiny shoes. They just come to see what they can get out of other people’s pain,” Jimenez said.
Political analysts said the quake underlined politicians’ lack of credibility, less than a year out from presidential elections.
Just 35 percent of Mexicans approve of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s response, a poll by the Reforma newspaper said.
“Anger with the political class will be the political aftermath of the earthquake,” the Eurasia Group consulting firm said. “This shows the deeply rooted discontent which is likely to continue.”
Rescue workers have now wrapped up their efforts at all but five sites in Mexico City, and the chances of pulling any more survivors from the rubble are dim.
However, Pena Nieto has been careful to insist that authorities will not send in bulldozers to start cleanup until rescuers are absolutely certain there are no more people in the rubble.
The building where Estrada’s cousin was located, at 286 Alvaro Obregon Avenue in the trendy Roma neighborhood, is now the main search site.
It crumpled into a tangled heap of concrete and steel with 132 people inside.
Twenty-nine people were rescued alive from the building in the first days, and 69 across the city.
However, since late Friday, only bodies have been recovered.
In Mexico City, people have began to warily return to work and school.
After nearly a week of eerie quiet in the sprawling city of 20 million people, the capital’s notorious traffic jams were starting to appear again.
Of the capital’s 8,700 schools, 103 reopened on Monday, the Mexican Ministry of Education said.
The rest were due to resume classes in the coming days, after undergoing architectural inspections.
The stakes are high for an already widely criticized government. After an earlier earthquake on Sept. 7, all schools were given a clean bill of health.
However, the city was shocked by the elementary school collapse that killed 19 children and seven adults.
An aftershock on Saturday that shook Mexico City has made the country all the more jittery.
And the sense of vulnerability has only been heightened by the fact that Tuesday’s earthquake struck on the anniversary of a 1985 quake that killed more than 10,000 people, the worst in Mexican history.
Mexico is particularly earthquake-prone, sitting atop five tectonic plates.
Many people are still on edge and suffering from post-traumatic stress, said psychologist Raquel Gonzalez, who is part of a team offering free counseling sessions in a park at the heart of the disaster zone.
“The people who come feel like the ground is still moving. They’re very afraid,” she said.
The latest death toll stands at 326 people — 187 of them in Mexico City.
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