Residents of Atzala Street in San Andrés Cholula expressed their surprise and dissatisfaction over the formation of a four-meter-deep sinkhole, reported since Monday night.
In an interview for 24 HOURSResidents of the area said they reported the incident to Civil Protection when the storm was at its peak; however, state authorities arrived at the scene several hours later.
“We called Civil Protection when the rain started, around 6 pm, but they didn’t arrive until 9 pm, almost 10 pm,” said Alfredo, a resident who runs a laundry business in the area.
Due to the delay, cars continued to drive over the road, causing the ground to continue sinking, until the sinkhole opened completely.
“The vehicles continued to drive over them, they did not take any precautions, until some of those who were passing by realized that the earth was falling down and they backed away,” said the merchant.
This situation caused business owners to show their anger towards the authorities for omitting preventive instructions in case of emergency.
“They didn’t tell us anything, they didn’t warn us, but when we realized it, the ground was already sinking,” they told this reporter.
Following the formation of a hole in the middle of the street, local businesses had to close temporarily due to work to mitigate the subsidence.
It is worth mentioning that the municipal authorities of San Andrés Cholula did not go to Atzala Street until Tuesday. At approximately 12:30 p.m., a neighbor contacted this newspaper to report that the workers had left and that only the engineers were there, but that they were no longer doing any type of rehabilitation.
“There is no one else but the engineers, but let’s see what this time brings us, we’re going to be like this,” Alfredo explained.
For its part, the San Andrés City Council requested the support of Agua de Puebla so that they could investigate the reason for this collapse.
At around 10:30 a.m., workers from Agua de Puebla and the construction company in charge of the project began removing dirt to reach the bottom.
They found that the sinkhole is four metres deep and 10 metres long. However, they say they do not know the cause of the land collapse.
THEY DISCLAIMS RESPONSIBILITIES
The San Andrés City Council said that the construction company was responsible for ensuring that the drainage pipe worked correctly, despite the rains of recent weeks.
Municipal authorities have therefore asked contractors to check whether the support pipes were properly installed or whether they were broken.
In this regard, the construction company stated that they considered that the problem was generated because the stormwater system was not firm, that is, the support pipe of the landfill, which is the responsibility of the San Andres City Council.
The lack of agreement between the parties complicated the resolution of the problem and left the residents uncertain about the measures to be taken to avoid future incidents.
CITA:
“The vehicles continued to drive over them, they did not take any precautions, until some of those who were passing by realised that the earth was falling down and they backed away.”
