Mexico City boosts funds for families of train collapse victims

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico City officials said on Saturday financial support would be increased for the families of victims who died after a metro railway line collapsed onto a busy street for a total of nearly 2 million pesos ($101,225).

Officials said in a news conference that the families of 26 people who died in the May 3 incident would receive an additional million pesos in compensation for a total of 1,920,000 pesos, and that they would receive the money next week.

Mexico City first announced victims’ families would receive an initial 650,000 pesos in compensation from the Metro train line on May 8. That was later raised to 870,000 pesos, officials said, before the new increase announced Saturday. An additional 50,000 pesos from the city was also part of the compensation.

“We will send the notification and in the course of this week we will begin to deliver the amount of this additional million pesos,” said Armando Ocampo of Mexico City’s executive commission for the attention to victims.

The collapse of an overpass on Line 12 of the metro in southeastern Mexico City on May 3 sparked an independent probe into the incident. Preliminary results showed a structural fault triggered the collapse.

A consortium made up of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s Grupo Carso, Mexico’s Grupo ICA and France’s Alstom built Line 12.

Slim said last week the line did not have any problems when it opened. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said after a meeting with Slim that the business magnate would cover the entire cost of rebuilding the collapsed section, at no cost to the government.

($1 = 19.7580 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Sharay Angulo and Cassandra Garrison; editing by Diane Craft)