English

September 2017 earthquake: Mexico has yet to rebuild itself

The majority of the victims haven't received any kind of support

People raise hands outside a collapsed building during a homage in memory of the victims who died in the earthquake on September 19 at Álvaro Obregón Avenue in the Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City - Photo: Henry Romero/REUTERS
19/09/2019 |09:32
Redacción El Universal
Pendiente este autorVer perfil

In Mexico , there are areas with high levels of seismic activity . Mexicans , especially those who live i n Mexico City , are used to earthquakes . There are earthquake drills in schools and office buildings and there are civil protection brigades . When earthquakes devastate the country, civilians are the first to help those who were affected.

Nevertheless, those who aren't up to the task are the Mexican authorities . Today, it will be two years after the earthquake that devastated Mexico City, Morelos, and Puebla , however, the number of buildings that haven't been repaired is huge.

Numbers from the Education Ministr y indicate that 1 9,198 schools in 11 states are still under reconstruction or repair work . It is likely that the work won't be finished this year since the 2020 budget proposes an MXN $9 million budget for the reconstruction o f 9,000 schools that haven't been repaired, therefore, on average, each school will only receive MXN $1,000. Information issued by the National Education Infrastructure Institute (Inifed) earlier this month, and published by EL UNIVERSAL , indicates that the program requires MXN $1,300 million.

Newsletter
Recibe en tu correo las noticias más destacadas para viajar, trabajar y vivir en EU

In Mexico City alone, there are 239 damaged buildings and over 8,000 homes that haven't been repaired.

There are 197 historical buildings that were damaged in the capital but only six of them have been rehabilitated. The main reason behind the delay in the reconstruction work is that at the beginning, the Culture Ministry's Board of Cultural Heritage Sites and Monuments was in charge of the reconstruction projects but it didn't have the legal and administrative figure to lead the operations. Ten months after the earthquake , the government decided to hand the operations over to the INAH .

Historical buildings

and thousands of victims were unlucky because there was an intersection between the end and the start of a federal government , especially because a new party took over. Indifference and lack of interest, as well as the slow reasoning of those who are in charge of making government decisions have affected the projects. Bureaucracy is lagging behind. How long will those who lost everything have to wait?

gm