The construction company responsible for the FIU pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018 and killed six people reached an agreement with insurers to pay more than 42 million dollars to the victims, local media reported Thursday.
The firm, Magnum Construction Managemnt, formerly known as Munilla Construction Management (MCM), and which earlier this year filed for bankruptcy, has reached this agreement that represents a step forward in litigation brought by the families of the six victims and of the survivors due to the events that occurred on March 15 of last year.
On that day, six people, including a construction worker, were killed and eight others were injured by the collapse of the bridge using an “accelerated construction” method.
The 174-foot-long prefabricated pedestrian bridge collapsed in broad daylight on Calle Ocho, one of Miami’s main thoroughfares.
Its purpose was that students at the International University of Miami (FIU) could access the campus safely.
According to a local newspaper in Miami, Alan Goldfarb, a lawyer for the family of Alexa Durán, an FIU student who lost his life in the event, showed his hope that the agreement, which was entered in a federal court last April 30 and still must be approved by a judge, will allow to close the case.
“It is terrible because of what their relatives are going through, the judicial process has become a second punishment,” he added.
Last November, the US federal agency responsible for investigating transport accidents, NTSB, and which has yet to issue its final report, said that the bridge under construction that collapsed had “design errors.”
The fact has motivated other lawsuits filed by the victims against firms and institutions involved in the work of the FIU bridge.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who taught at the FIU, said in a statement on the first anniversary of the event that this “tragedy has left an indelible mark” on the university and community of South Florida.
FIU “was more than an academic institution for me, it was my home,” said Rubio, who said his office “will continue to closely examine the investigation” of the bridge collapse investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
