SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCÍA,. At least 9 people died and 63 were injured after a strong gust of wind knocked down the stage where Mexican presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez was holding a rally Wednesday night in the town of San Pedro Garza García, in the northern state of Nuevo León, according to the authorities.
The state governor, Samuel García, who immediately went to the scene, indicated that the death toll was still preliminary and that among the dead were eight adults and a minor who died in a hospital. He added that the injured had “different types of injuries.”
“It’s a tragedy,” he lamented.
Máynez, the candidate of the small opposition Citizen Movement party – placed in third place in the preferences – was unharmed. “The only important thing right now is to care for the victims of the accident,” were his first words on social networks after confirming that he was fine.
Videos published on networks showed how the tents and a giant screen collapsed, as well as the stage lights when the candidates were saying goodbye, and how the entire structure fell. Other recordings show people trying to get those left under the bars and the confusion and panic that reigned afterwards. The temple was about 20 meters high.
The authorities did not immediately report the number of people there, but after the rally a concert was planned by a popular northern music band, the Bronco group, which also broadcast a video to announce that they were fine and to show solidarity with the victims. victims.
“I hug family members, friends of the victims and supporters of that organization,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote in X. “We are attentive”.
Some people were temporarily trapped by the structures, said Miguel Treviño, the mayor of San Pedro Garza García, one of the country’s wealthiest municipalities located next to Nuevo León’s capital, Monterrey.
Around midnight, Civil Protection elements were still working at the scene along with police and military personnel who had been deployed in an emergency operation.
“The weather conditions were very atypical because the rain didn’t even last five minutes,” Máynez explained in a meeting with the press when describing the incident. And he gave as an example that on the way to the hospital to accompany some injured collaborators, he saw “many fallen trees.”
When the tent and the giant screen collapsed, people began to jump from the stage to wherever they could, explained the candidate, who only hit his head when colliding with a colleague who jumped at the same time.
“First I saw that the drums of the musicians of the group were going to fly (…) that I was going to play and when they realized they ran too,” he added. “It is a tragedy that the people who came to experience a day of celebration, of joy with us, with the whole group, are now victims of this tragedy.”
The governor, in a video released after the accident, insisted that the population avoid leaving their homes “because there are storms and atypical winds” and opened telephone help lines to citizens who were trying to find family members who believed in the place.
Shortly afterwards, while condolences and gestures of solidarity poured in from authorities and politicians of all stripes, Máynez announced that all his campaign activities planned for Thursday were suspended and that he would remain in Nuevo León “aware of the situation and the victims.” ”.
Civil Protection reviewed and verified the facilities, he noted, and it was now up to the authorities to investigate whether the checks were correct.
Máynez is the only man aspiring to the presidency of Mexico in the June 2 elections in which the official candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, from Morena, is the clear favorite, followed by another woman, Xóchitl Gálvez, the coalition candidate opposition formed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, National Action and the Party of the Democratic Revolution.
Both expressed their solidarity with what happened at the Citizen Movement event and Sheinbaum announced that she was also canceling a rally scheduled for Thursday in Monterrey.
Source: With information from AP
