Mexico City, Mexico— Ice fell like rocks at 6 p.m. on October 29, 2026. A sudden heavy hailstorm dumped tons of ice onto Mexico City, collapsing roofs on three sections of Central de Abastos, the capital's main wholesale food market that supplies around 80 percent of the city's food. The collapse was caught on video by people filming the intense storm.
El Universal said accumulated hail caused the roofs to buckle and fall inward onto produce stalls, crushing crates of tomatoes, onions and chilies. About 1,000 square meters of roofing came down under an estimated 20 metric tons of hail, according to reports from a similar collapse in March. Vendors ran. Some were trapped briefly under metal sheeting. No deaths were reported in the initial sweep, but 12 structures and roofs of houses and businesses were damaged across Benito Juarez and neighboring municipalities.
The phenomenon is not rare in Mexico City. On June 12, 2024, hail crashed onto balconies in Benito Juarez, collapsing a supermarket roof. In Guadalajara in 2019, a freak summer hailstorm buried six suburbs under up to five feet of ice, burying cars and trapping people. On October 29, 2026, giant hail was recorded in Puebla amid a heatwave, damaging houses and infrastructure.
In Central de Abastos, the problem is engineering. Market roofs are wide-span, lightweight metal. They are not designed for snow-like loads, but Mexico City does not get snow. It gets hail that behaves like snow. When tons accumulate in 30 minutes, the load exceeds design. Water cannot drain because ice blocks gutters. Then the roof fails.
"We heard cracking, then everything fell," said a vendor from aisle E-F, who sells limes, speaking after being pulled from under a collapsed truss. The market administration closed the affected sectors and called in the army to help clear ice. The city government said clean-up crews with dump trucks were removing ice that was still melting into stalls.
The friction is food and money. Central de Abastos feeds 22 million people in the metro area. When three sections close, prices spike overnight. Small farmers from Puebla and Morelos who truck produce in daily lost their load. Some had to dump rotting goods because refrigeration failed when power was cut for safety.
As of October 30, 2026, two of the three collapsed sections remained closed. Engineers were inspecting the remaining roofs for stress cracks. The low-pressure channel that brought thunderstorms and possible hail to 11 states in Mexico was still active, according to the national weather service. More hail was possible.
Vendors were waiting outside with brooms.
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