Mexican government holds contractor accountable for Maya Train catastrophe

The Mexican government has blamed a contractor for an error that caused a train to derail on the Maya Train, a scenic tourist route.

The train accident on March 25 made President Andrés Manuel López Obrador feel bad because the $20 billion railway is one of the projects he is most proud of. No one got hurt in the accident.

Critics say that the project, which goes in a circle around the Yucatan peninsula, is a waste and has harmed the environment. But some people are worried that it is being built too quickly. Lopez Obrador wants to complete it before he finishes his time as the president in September. “Rewrite this text in simple words. ”

Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval showed the problem by saying that the rail switch involved in the accident is supposed to work by itself eventually.

Because the automatic system is not ready yet, the president wanted some of the train line to be working. But this means the switch that moves train cars onto another track has to be moved by hand instead of automatically.

In one of the tasks, it seems like someone forgot to tighten the fitting properly.

Sandoval said “They found that this clamp wasn’t fastened tightly. ”

He said that Alstom, the company that made the trains, and Azvindi, the company that built the rail line, are looking at how much damage was done in the accident.

López Obrador told the builders to make the project through a jungle, even though activists said it would harm the caves in the Yucatan peninsula.

The president said he would build a raised platform for the train tracks to avoid damaging the caves, but they put the support beams right into the caves.

In March, people who care about the environment shared pictures of steel and cement posts being put through the roofs of the caves.

The caves, lakes, and rivers in Mexico’s Caribbean coast are important for the environment and have old human remains inside them.

They are the only source of clean water in the area because there are no rivers on the flat limestone peninsula.

The caves were dry a long time ago, so people and animals used them. Then, the caves got flooded and the things inside them were protected from being disturbed.

In December, López Obrador opened a new part of the train that goes to the north and east. It goes between Cancun and the colonial city of Campeche, but it is not finished yet.

The 950-mile line makes a big circle around the Yucatan peninsula. It is supposed to connect beach resorts and old places where people used to live.

The Mexican army helped build the train, and the armed forces will run it. President López Obrador has given the armed forces more projects than any other president in the last 100 years.