On September 20, 2017, the Mexican rescue team searched for people trapped in rubble at Enrique Rebsamen Primary School in Mexico City.
Mario Vazquez/AFP via Getty Images
Mexican authorities said on Wednesday that a Mexican court sentenced a man to 208 years in prison for the murder of 26 people, most of them children, who died when a school collapsed during the strong earthquake in Mexico City in 2017.
The Office of the Attorney General of Mexico City stated that it showed that the man described as the director of engineering had ensured the structural safety of the Talpan School in the southern region of the capital without conducting the necessary tests, despite the irregularities in the construction of the building.
The Attorney General’s Office named the man Juan “N”. The local media called him Juan Mario Velarde Gamez.
The court also ordered Velarde to pay 377,450 pesos (19,000 US dollars) to each victim’s family.
In the 7.1 magnitude earthquake, the privately-owned Enrique Rebsamen school collapsed, killing 19 children and 7 adults. It was the deadliest earthquake in a generation in Mexico. At least 369 people died in the capital and surrounding states.
Mexican prosecutors said at the time that they had begun investigating the potential criminal liability of the owners and private inspectors for the collapse.
The verdict was made during an investigation into the collapse of an overpass on Metro Line 12 in Mexico City on May 3, and the accident also caused 26 deaths. Government data show that the line was damaged in the same earthquake.
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