Negligence And Forgotten Victims Remain

Canada Goose online Retirement for Canada Goose Jackets Guadalupe Padilla Mendoza meant pursuing her passion: rescuing dogs. The former public servant had begun taking street dogs into her home in Mexico City, squeezing as many as she could into a canadian goose jacket humble apartment. Canada Goose online

But a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that ripped through her city and killed hundreds on Sept. 19, 2017, changed her plans.

uk canada goose outlet The building unit next to Padilla’s trembled, then fell; its top four floors pancaked onto the ground level. Padilla’s belongings were scattered across the floor, glass was broken and her walls were cracked. But she was alive. uk canada goose outlet

After days of rescue efforts, nine people were confirmed dead in the unit flattened by the quake. All of the nearly 1,500 residents of the Multifamiliar Tlalpan a previously public housing complex in the south of the city where Padilla lived were forced to leave their homes behind.

canada goose uk outlet The now homeless residents quickly set up shelter in adjacent parks. Padilla corralled her rescue dogs into a little canada goose tent. The 60 year old has since expanded her makeshift home, stringing tarps across a playground and adding rickety gates, and today she marks one year of living on the street. canada goose uk outlet

buy canada goose jacket But the prevailing sentiments in these makeshift shelters are still anger and desperation. That’s especially the case for Padilla, who spent decades as a public servant and now feels abandoned by the government. buy canada goose jacket

“They don’t answer my questions even though I’m out here in the streets fighting the elements, and literal rats,” she says.

Each of the residents receives Canada Goose online about $200 per month in financial support from the government for rent, but those who still live in the camps many are retired and elderly; others, single mothers say it’s not enough for rent, much less daily expenses. Padilla has come out of retirement, working a night shift as a security guard, because her monthly $75 pension canada goose clearance and the government disaster aid don’t make ends meet.

canada goose clearance sale “I’ve gotten sick so often living out here that some months, I’ve spent almost canada goose coats all that on health care,” Fuentes says. The camp dwellers complain of frequent respiratory illness and canada goose deals the flu from braving the chilly, wet nights of Mexico City. According to their counts, 17 of the camps’ elderly residents have died since moving in. canada goose clearance sale

“Some died from existing condition,” says Ivn Martnez, another organizer from the complex. “But my neighbor seemed perfectly healthy before and then fell ill from anxiety and stress Canada Goose sale and later died.”

Many canada goose store residents have been racked with a question over the past year: Why were the buildings of the Multifamiliar Tlalpan so devastated by the quake, while buildings next door seem untouched?

A Tour Through Mexico’s Corruption Sites

Laura Sanchez Ley, an investigative reporter at Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (known by its Spanish abbreviation MCCI) dug into that question. Along with a team, she investigated 28 buildings in Mexico City that were collapsed and damaged in the earthquake.

Canada Goose Parka She says the canada goose black friday sale the disaster can be explained in three words: “Corruption, negligence and impunity.” Canada Goose Parka

Canada Goose Jackets is a damning rebuke of Mexico City, which claimed to be a global example of earthquake preparedness after learning from a 1985 earthquake that flattened hundreds of buildings and led to a death count of over 5,000. Canada Goose Jackets

canadian goose jacket “Mexico’s construction buy canada goose jacket regulations are supposedly the best in the world,” Sanchez says. They discovered falsified building plans coupled buy canada goose jacket cheap with cheap materials, dangerously thin weight bearing canada goose coats on sale columns and floors added to buildings without permits. canadian goose jacket

cheap Canada Goose Their analysis also revealed corruption among the responsible works directors, known by their Spanish abbreviation, DRO. This certification emerged after 1985 as a way to ensure an architect or civil engineer signed off on each building in the city to confirm that all structures met earthquake standards. cheap Canada Goose

canada goose uk shop MCCI’s report found a complete perversion of DROs. Canada Goose Parka They discovered 27 DROs who did not have the required civil engineering or architecture degrees one canada-goose-outlet DRO held a degree in physical fitness. canada goose uk shop

Canada Goose Coats On Sale Negligence was also a major cause of collapsed buildings, as in the case of the Multifamiliar Tlalpan. The complex was built as public housing for civil servants in the ’50s, but by the ’80s, the government began selling Canada Goose Outlet its apartments. Canada Goose Coats On Sale

With that privatization, Sanchez says maintenance of these old buildings fell to the wayside. In the case of the collapsed building, MCCI found only 197,000 pesos about $10,400 in today’s dollars of maintenance since the privatization. Leaky water tanks, broken sewage pipes and decades old tree roots had weakened the foundation.

“The culprit in this case is public policy,” she says. “There’s massive public housing projects that are forgotten about and fall into disrepair.”

The case also carries on a tragic legacy: With Multifamiliar Tlalpan’s 2017 collapse, each of Mexico City’s three major earthquakes in recent history resulted in the collapse of at least one public housing building.

canada goose coats on sale Maddeningly, Sanchez says, citizens who flagged faulty buildings weren’t heard. canada goose coats on sale

canada goose The MCCI report also highlights impunity for those responsible for building safety. “The real estate developers and the DROs are at large. Not a single public servant has been sanctioned for signing off on building permits or land use” that resulted in a collapse, it reads. canada goose

canada goose uk black friday Nearly a year later, some repairs begin canada goose uk black friday

While on paper the Mexican government has allocated billions of dollars for reconstruction, few citizens feel whole a year later.

Canada Goose Online “There is a significant delay in getting access canada goose outlet to these [earthquake recovery] resources,” says Manuel Guadarrama, public finance researcher at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness think tank. “There are a lot of communities that are still waiting for the help of the government.” Canada Goose Online.