Family Buries Tica Killed in Boston

Relatives of Milena Mora, a Tica killed when a tunnel collapsed on top of her in Boston last week, laid her to rest in a cemetery just outside San José Wednesday.

Her husband of three years, Luis Angel Del Valle, who was with Mora when the accident occurred but was not seriously hurt, arrived here Monday afternoon and spent time with Mora’s relatives, according to the daily Al Día.

Mora’s family told the daily various lawyers have called them, urging them to sue those responsible for the tragedy. They have no plans to do so and have left such decisions in Del Valle’s hands. The tragedy continues to make headlines in Boston and has sparked an investigation into what caused the accident.

Mora, 39, who had lived in the United States for five years, was traveling to pick up visiting family members from Boston’s Logan International Airport at the time of the accident. She became trapped under the weight of a 10-by-13-foot section of concrete that fell from the tunnel’s ceiling and died by the time rescue workers arrived, The Boston Herald reported. Del Valle, from Puerto Rico, was able to escape through the window of the Buick he was driving with minor injuries and was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The couple was passing through the Mass Pike connector tunnel, part of Boston’s large-scale “Big Dig” highway project, according to the Herald.

A state trooper who saw the accident told the Herald “it appeared that iron securing the slab to the tunnel roof gave way.”

Boston Mayor Tom Menino called for a third-party investigation of the accident last week.

Mora, who worked in Boston as a waitress and toll collector for the city’s metro system, was the mother of three children ages 17, 19 and 23. She was buried in La Piedad Cemetery in Moravia, northeast of San José.