(Ciudad Madero) The death toll from the collapse of the roof of a church on Sunday in Ciudad Madero, in northeastern Mexico, rose to 11 on Monday after the death of a seriously injured person, the authorities announced. authorities.
“Unfortunately, I have just learned that another person has died. We have 11 dead,” the city’s mayor, Adrian Oseguera, told reporters at the scene of the tragedy that occurred during a baptism attended by 62 people.
Thirteen of them are still hospitalized, including a minor in “intensive care”. Search operations, carried out with the help of rescue dogs, were suspended late Monday morning.
The accident occurred on Sunday around 2:18 p.m. local time (4:18 p.m. Eastern time), likely due to a structural failure, authorities said in a statement. The Santa Cruz parish church with briquette walls and tin roof, built around forty years ago, was renovated in 2010.
“What the priest said was that at the time of the blessing he heard a rod [du toit] give in,” Roberto Chavez, civil protection coordinator for the state of Tamaulipas, told the press.
“We are living in a very difficult moment,” said the bishop of the local diocese, José Armando Alvarez, in a video posted on social media.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday offered his condolences to the relatives of the victims. The tragedy aroused “a lot of solidarity from the people,” he said during his daily press conference.
As construction equipment begins to clear the rubble, Beatriz Morales, a housewife, says she is “shocked”. “What happens to one of us, happens to all of us, so we feel a lot of pain for the families who are going through this,” she adds.
Located on the Gulf Coast, Ciudad Madero has a population of just over 200,000.
In 2017, a similar tragedy occurred when a church in the state of Puebla (center) collapsed during a baptism following an earthquake. Eleven people from the same family had died, including the baby who was to be baptized.