A 20-year-old woman died on Thursday in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Devoto after being struck by a wooden beam that detached from scaffolding at a construction site. The incident took place on Chivilcoy at 3600, and the victim died at the scene. The architect in charge has been charged with culpable homicide.
The tragic incident occurred on Thursday at Chivilcoy 3647 in Villa Devoto, when a 20-year-old woman walking on the sidewalk was struck by a wooden beam that detached from the scaffolding structure at a construction site. According to the Ciudad's General Logistics Directorate, the impact caused the victim's immediate death, confirmed by SAME upon arrival at the scene. Police responded to a 911 call reporting a person lying on the public way.
The investigation is under the Juzgado Nacional en lo Criminal y Correccional N.º 33, which opened a case for culpable homicide. The architect in charge of the work, Claudio Sergio Mónaco, aged 79, has been charged. Justice is pointing to possible failures in the site's safety conditions and has ordered expert analyses to determine how the scaffolding detachment happened.
Gabriela, a neighbor who has lived in the area for 37 years, expressed her outrage: “This could have been avoided.” She added that problems with construction works are not new and that “they are massacring the neighborhood.” This incident echoes other tragic events in Buenos Aires constructions, such as the one earlier this year in Villa Luro, where a hoist collapsed causing one death and one injury.
The local community is calling for stricter oversight of construction sites to prevent similar accidents.
