This article was reported by Telemundo 20. To read the original story, click here.
After the collapse of the first building in the La Sierra neighborhood of Tijuana on April 1, which maintained permanent surveillance of the site, this Sunday a second building of 14 apartments ended up collapsing.
Since the early morning of March 27th, an earth movement began and has not ceased. Although talks had already been held with the owner of the property to carry out a safe demolition, there was no need for such action, because shortly after 8 a.m., the building collapsed, Miguel Ángel Bujanda, secretary general of government, confirmed to Telemundo 20.
Mexico
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“The time and weight won; it just kept moving. That’s what experts kept saying and then at 8:07 a.m., the building collapsed. We, as the city council, are carrying out an expert appraisal through the college of engineers, to know the causes that led to this collapse", Bujanda said.
It was a moment captured by 24/7 emergency personnel that were deployed to monitor the area. Rafael Carrillo, Tijuana’s fire chief, said personnel on duty at the time captured the moments before the collapse and closed the road before the building fell.
"We saw a very evident movement of the earth, which gave us the opportunity to close the road in order to avoid any damage," he said.
Crews began to monitor the area following the collapse. In a matter of seconds, everything was reduced to rubble. While assessing the conditions of businesses and homes in the area, the ground is continuing to move and shift.
"Of the businesses that are downstairs, only the one with windows suffered total damage, the ones right after that still have material on the ground, we are going to evaluate if we can give them access to those businesses so they can take out their belongings," said Bernardo Villegas, director of civil protection in Tijuana.
Some residents of La Sierra, such as Alberto Ramirez, watched with concern as the earth crumbled and took away their family's assets in the blink of an eye.
"We’ve always felt vulnerable but now we feel it a little more and we are going to have to take measures when I’m at home,” Ramirez said. We also have a slope and we’re planning to plant trees there so that the roots go through the layers and the earth is more established.”
In the past, they have already been affected by the fall of a slope in this same neighborhood.
"We had to build a retaining wall," added Alberto Ramirez, a resident of La Sierra.
The wall placed in the roadway contained the material that fell on the boulevard where this morning two backhoe loaders began the cleanup work. As they piled up belongings that could be salvaged from the rubble on one side, Ricardo Güereña, Director of Urban Administration said.
"Aside from trying to clean up and clear the roadway and sidewalk we are trying to recover as much as we can," he said.
Traffic remains open in both directions on Cuauhtémoc Boulevard, one lane in each direction. The cleanup work is expected to take two to three days to fully open this roadway in Tijuana.