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A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 22 July 2017

Mexican highway sinkhole that killed 2 exposes corruption

By MARK STEVENSON The warnings couldn’t
Associated Press have been clearer as local
MEXICO CITY (AP) — officials watched the wa-
When a car carrying a ter eat a hole in the con-
father and son plunged tainment wall supporting
into a giant sinkhole that the highway.
opened on a highway in It was getting bigger with
central Mexico, it caused each passing rainstorm.
Mexicans to shudder, not Just two weeks before the
just at the men’s agoniz- highway collapsed, a low-
ing deaths, but at the cor- level Cuernavaca official,
ruption, shoddy work and Mario Meneses, hand-de-
dubious government con- livered a letter to the trans-
tracts it exposed. portation department.
The highway connecting “I am telling you that the
Mexico City and the Pacif- wall you built in this area is
ic coast resort of Acapulco about to collapse,” it said.
had only recently been On June 27 the head of the
redone and was still fes- state civil defense office,
tooned with inaugural ban- Francisco Bermudez, held
ners proclaiming “Thank a meeting with the trans-
you, Mr. President!” for the In this July 12, 2017 photo, rescue workers use a crane to lift a vehicle that drove into a sinkhole portation department’s lo-
project. on a highway in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where a father and son were killed when the deep sinkhole cal representative.
swallowed their car. The highway connecting Mexico City and the Pacific coast resort of Aca-
The government quickly pulco had only recently been redone and was still festooned with inaugural banners proclaiming, “We made a presentation
removed the banners and “Thank you, Mr. President!” for the project. for him with a video show-
fired a few low-ranking offi- (AP Photo/Tony Rivera) ing point by point what the
cials, while the federal high- problem was,” Bermudez
way department rushed to ing one anti-corruption Against Corruption. water commission, had said.
blame heavy rainfall, not expert to call what hap- Documents show local of- warned the transportation “On July 9 it rained again
shoddy construction, for pened “the same movie ficials from at least three department about prob- and the hole got deeper.
the tragedy last week in we’ve seen before” when agencies in nearby Cu- lems at the spot, where We called them again and
which the men slowly as- it comes to Mexican infra- ernavaca, just south of a gully and storm drain they started repair work,
phyxiated at the bottom of structure projects. Mexico’s capital, had re- cross under the highway. but on the 12th it rained
the sinkhole over the span “The difference is that here peatedly warned federal “The drain that carries wa- again and they didn’t
of an hour and a half. there was a tragedy, there officials that a decades-old ter from the gully isn’t big have time.”
But it soon emerged that were deaths. drain conduit under the enough to handle the wa- In the pre-dawn hours of
multiple local officials had But the irregularities seen new highway was woefully ter,” Valencia wrote. July 12, part of the contain-
warned of serious problems here are the kind of thing insufficient, prone to block- Transportation officials re- ment wall gave way, wash-
with the highway construc- that is seen constantly in age and in danger of over- sponded that the drain ing away the highway’s
tion and audits found over- this type of work,” said Raul flowing. had functioned well for 40 foundations and collaps-
payments to contractors Olmos, a researcher for the Juan Carlos Valencia, the years and they saw no rea- ing a section of roadway
who did the work, lead- nonprofit group Mexicans head of the Morelos state son to replace it. that created a gaping hole
that swallowed Juan Mena
4 Puerto Rico police indicted in corruption case and his father as they were
headed to work at a food
plant.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico profit. hicle and an unmarked the police department’s In the aftermath of the
(AP) — Four former or cur- The U.S. Attorney’s Of- one. drug and narcotics divi- disaster, the head of the
rent Puerto Rico police of- fice said Friday that the Authorities said the man’s sion. The FBI arrested him transportation depart-
ficers have been indicted suspects brandished their family witnessed the 2013 Friday at his house. ment, Gerardo Ruiz Es-
on allegations they stole weapons and told the incident. The men are charged with parza, said he had never
more than five kilograms man they had a search Three of the suspects are conspiracy to interfere with been told of the warnings
of cocaine from a man warrant as they arrived at former officers and one of commerce by robbery and defended the work
and then sold the drugs for his house in an official ve- them was still working for and drug trafficking.q done on the highway. q