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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Mexico City airport terminal sinking, at risk of collapse: López Obrador

Airport authorities have built makeshift solutions to the problems, like ramps between buildings that have become uneven, but experts say serious intervention is needed.

MEXICO CITY (CN) — Serious structural flaws threaten the viability of a terminal at the Mexico City International Airport and could require reinforcements or a total rebuild, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

A panel of experts has already evaluated the structures of Terminal 2 at Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport and their conclusions will be released next week, the president said at his morning press conference Wednesday. 

The airport was built on the dry lakebed of what was once Lake Texcoco, an area composed of loosely packed, clay-rich subsoils that present difficulties for architects and structural engineers. Like much of Mexico City, Terminal 2 is sinking into the Earth.

“In addition to the poor quality of the soil, they didn’t lay the proper foundations,” said López Obrador. “What we have to do is [figure out] how to avoid a collapse and disasters. One possibility is to rebuild it.”

Passengers at the Mexico City airport's Terminal 2 use makeshift ramps to move from the airport lobby to the bus terminal, the latter of which has sunk nearly four feet since the structure was built. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)

While some have accused López Obrador of attempting to shine a negative light on the Benito Juárez airport in order to improve the public’s opinion of the new airport on the Santa Lucía military base north of the capital, Wednesday’s announcement appears to be of substance.

“It may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t,” said Fernando Gómez Suárez, an independent airport infrastructure specialist.

“There are parts of Terminal 2 that have sunk as far as three to four feet. It has been gradual, sinking around four to eight inches a year, and it was imperceptible up until now, when it can’t be hidden anymore,” he said. 

Passengers board cars near a spot where torn concrete and rebar reveal where a walkway in the rotund garden at Terminal 2 was once connected to the street level. The ground of the garden sunk several feet after the September 2017 opened up a sinkhole nearby. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)

Since its inauguration in November 2007, airport authorities have attempted to compensate for the disjointed sections of the terminal with ramps, metal sheets and other structural band-aids. The problem, however, isn’t going anywhere and extreme measures may be required. 

“It was poorly designed,” said Gómez. “Any engineer should be able to see the problems presented by the subsoil. The company that won the government contract to build it didn’t lay enough foundations to support those kinds of buildings.”

Begun during the presidency of Vicente Fox and inaugurated after his successor Felipe Calderón had already taken office, Terminal 2 was built by the Mexican construction firm ICA. Unlike Terminal 1, a private sector initiative completed in 1958, Terminal 2 was erected as a public work, with a government contract awarded to ICA.

"That may tell us something about where the problem came from," said Gómez.

ICA did not immediately respond to Courthouse News’ request for comment. 

A jagged crack separates the upper street level and ramp structures at the Terminal 2 rotunda. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)

The Band-Aid solutions of which Gómez spoke are quite apparent at Terminal 2. While the ramps between the entrances and the pick-up area for taxis and private vehicles are modest and may not stand out to those in a hurry, passengers headed to the adjoining bus station get a clear view of how the terminal has shifted since inauguration day.

“When I started working here eight and a half years ago, there was only one step between these two levels, now there are four,” said one airport employee who preferred not to give his name out of fear of retaliation from management.

He and others working at the time of the September 2017 earthquake that rocked the terminal had been forced to hand over their phones to ensure they deleted all photos and videos of how the event affected the structures, the employee said. 

A vertical distance of nearly four feet now separates the floor of the airport terminal and the ground of the bus terminal. 

Even after being modified to fit the sinking structures at Terminal 2, a pipe continues to be pulled up from the concrete in which it was laid. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)

“Even this right here was level with the floor before the pandemic,” he said, pointing to a smaller ramp about a foot in height connecting the floor to the landing of the makeshift metal ramp that allows access between the two levels. 

Other signs of the danger López Obrador mentioned in his press conference abound at the terminal. Metal braces stapled up the walls of the vehicle ramps resemble oversize stitches. Jagged, two inch-wide cracks creep up between sections of the structure. Walkways in the rotunda garden, broken from where they once connected with the outer ring, reveal how the ground has sunk over three feet since their construction. Pipes once buried, now broken, hang in midair. 

Gómez did not want to speculate on what the panel of experts might recommend, but said that the problem has grown very serious and will require some kind of intervention in the near future.

“When you do things right, things work well,” he said. “You can even build a runway out on the ocean. The engineering and architecture is available to build even in lacustrine places like Texcoco, but something went wrong with Terminal 2, and now we’re seeing the consequences of that.”

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Categories / Government, International

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