The Madrid government has commissioned the Polytechnic University of Madrid a satellite study to learn about the “structural health” of buildings in the east of the Madrid region, as the EFE agency has advanced this Saturday. The commission, without any cost, is known after years of drama, a list of 260 affected homes and an invoice for the regional executive of more than 70 million euros. This new study will allow to locate “vulnerable areas”, according to the information of the agreement between the Ministry of Housing and the Madrid University.
The study will use a technique that allows to know with millimetric precision the rate of land deformation, buildings and infrastructure, comparing data between 2003 and 2025. Technology is known as synthetic opening radar interferometry (INSAR).
The agreement has been published this Saturday, and specifies that the report must include proposals for shares “to carry out a future monitoring of movements in the area subject to study”.
President Isabel Díaz Ayuso has inherited this problem of her predecessor, the Madrid former president Esperanza Aguirre, who launched this Aguirre inaugurated the East Metro in 2007 (an extension of Metro Line 7) and shortly afterwards damage to the surface buildings were damaged under which the tunnel passes, in the municipality of San Fernando de Henares. The work was designed in unstable terrain that facilitated water filtration. Since then, 21 buildings have demolished with 75 homes where about 200 people lived. The Metro has been closed since 2022 for the repair works and there is no
The Community of Madrid and the City of San Fernando Discrepan about the scope of the damage. While the Regional Executive has accepted that 260 homes have suffered damage due to the work, the local government, of the socialist Javier Corpa, elevates that figure to more than 600, after having made a census.
In the agreement with the UPM, the community states that “auscultation works” have revealed “certain land movements whose origin has not only been due to the construction of the tunnel.” Therefore, it wants to “compare the deformations of the vicinity of the tunnel with areas not affected by this.”
This satellite technique will allow a historical analysis of deformations from 2003 to 2025 from which “plan the instrumentation and future topographic campaigns” and “classify each of the buildings and infrastructure according to their degree of condition.” The study will be led by Rubén Martínez, professor of the Department of Engineering and Morphology of the UPM land.
