Mexico City plans quake memorial at collapsed building site

FILE: Volunteers and rescuers working at a collapsed warehouse, colonia Obrera, Mexico City. (Photo by ProtoplasmaKid – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Mexico City plans to expropriate the lot where a seven-story office building collapsed during the Sept. 19 earthquake and will use it to erect a memorial to all the tremor’s victims.

Forty-nine bodies were pulled from the rubble of the building near the city’s centre. That was the largest single death toll among the 38 buildings felled by the quake. There were 228 deaths in the city, and 369 people died in the region.

The city’s legal counsel said Sunday that victims’ families would have a voice on what the memorial looks like.

Mexico City has decided to demolish at least 58 more buildings badly damaged by the quake, but the work is technically and legally complicated and is going slowly. Demolition has started at only about five sites.