Buenos Aires Sues Madrid’s Metro Over Asbestos Wagons

A man walks in the Buenos Aires Underground between wagons contaminated with asbestos. (Flickr)

Buenos Aires filed a lawsuit against Madrid’s Metro for the sale of wagons that were contaminated with asbestos. The civil complaint demands more than 14 million euros after 11 workers fell ill.

The Madrid Metro sold 36 wagons to the Buenos Aires Underground in 2011. In February of last year, it was confirmed that 24 of the wagons contained asbestos. Following this news, the Argentinian subway workers went on strike.

The Madrid Metro has been aware that their trains contain asbestos for over two decades, according to El País. Reports indicate that the company has known about the asbestos since  1991, despite its assertion that it discovered the asbestos in 2003. The Spanish subway company decided to take action only after a worker fell ill in 2017.

The contaminated wagons were used in Buenos Aires’s B Line, one of the busiest trains, which generally transported more than 240,000 passengers each day. 763 subway workers are also at risk after exposure to this carcinogen. So far, 11 of these workers have been diagnosed with pulmonary illness.

Buenos Aires Subway President Eduardo de Montmollin confirmed that the manuals for the wagons disclosed the contamination of asbestos but they assumed the issue was fixed considering the manuals were extremely old. He said, “It is true that somewhere in the documents it says that [asbestos was found] but there was no way of proving if this was true… I cannot guarantee every single page of every single manual was read, but we assumed that if the documents confirmed it then the Madrid Metro would have already taken care of it… we assumed what was sold to us was in good enough condition to be sold.”

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid, said the Madrid Metro is continuing the treatment and disposal of the contaminated subway parts, and it has set an example for other countries around the world facing the same issue.
Both Spanish and Argentinian authorities assure citizens that the subways are safe for all citizens. However, the effect on the workers who had close contact with the asbestos remains to be seen.