translated from Spanish: When “The Metro” doesn’t measure the same in Security

Mr. Director: 
Last Monday, May 3, 2021, information was provided for 27 people killed and about 80 people injured after the beam of a bridge on the Mexico City metro collapsed. This is the biggest tragedy in the city since the 2017 earthquake. A construction structure between 2008 and 2012, inaugurated this last year, 8 years after its use, collapsed. That’s why many questions arise about these modern constructions.
It is true that every megaproject, built as a critical node, and of massive convergence for transport, in Chile has the highest standards of construction, for all that it means and for the people it must move. Metro, as indicated in December 2020, “carried about 1,100,000 passengers daily, which is very distant from the 2,800,000 we had on average” prior to the arrival of the coronavirus.
So that the maximum use of its capabilities at peak times, without any rest necessarily implies a program of preventive inspections of structures, adding a real difficulty, which Chile, is also the most seismic country in the world. However, I would emphasize what preventive maintenance procedures mean: the main objective of maintenance is to avoid or mitigate the consequences of equipment or material failures, managing to prevent incidents before they occur. Respecting usage standards is critical, when trains and structures do not have adequate maintenance and are played with the resistance limits for which they were made, we are creating a complex and emergency-appropriate scenario.
Chile’s pre-pandemic Metro has withstood a dangerous passenger saturation scenario, which puts us on notice of some critical situations, which became acceptable because of the need for transportation. Increasing people on end of overcoming demarcation lines, access scales and saturated evacuation without the possibility of movements and free spaces; situations that could lead to injured people and perhaps dead people. The scenario of uncontrollability that can cause a fire, as has already happened, or a malicious attack or action, an earthquake, or a simple stampede, add to the emergency itself, security conditions that are not given and that we have accepted as normal, even though we have clear signs that this should not be the case. Why? Because the maximum capacity standards are not being respected, the number of people, weights, is not adequate; because accessibility and evacuation spaces are being used on walks and stairs with passengers who want to transport the same, because access to the stations is not effectively controlled.
Staff per season are minimal and given the volume of a tragedy when factors converge such as: poor design, or poor construction, non-respect for the capacity limits of people or weights, can cause a major urban disaster. Just because we didn’t listen to the signs that reality showed us. Just as Chile’s Metro is praised for many things, it is likely that “the Metro” does not measure the same in Security.
Luis Carrasco Garrido
Academic Department of Risk prevention and environment UTEM

Original source in Spanish