PICS AND VIDEOS: Strong earthquake kills almost 150 in #MexicoCity

Published Sep 20, 2017

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Mexico City - Rescue crews and ordinary

citizens searched through rubble for survivors as night fell on

Tuesday on battered cities in central Mexico, including the

capital, where the death toll from a major earthquake grew to at

least 149.

The magnitude 7.1 quake toppled dozens of buildings, broke

gas mains and sparked fires less than two weeks after another

powerful quake killed at least 98 people in southern Mexico. It

also hit just hours after emergency drills marked the

anniversary of a temblor that killed thousands in 1985.

Millions of people fled into the streets, where they

weathered the violent shaking and desperately sought word about

the welfare of family and friends.

Emergency personnel in Mexico City, a metropolitan region of

about 20 million people, searched frantically with picks and

shovels for survivors beneath the rubble of what the sprawling

city's mayor calculated to be as many as 44 collapsed buildings,

including at least one primary school.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said late on Tuesday

more than 20 children and two adults had been found dead at the

school, Colegio Enrique Rebsamen, in the neighborhood of Coapa.

Another 30 children and 12 adults were missing, he said.

Emergency personnel and equipment were being deployed across

affected areas so that "throughout the night we can continue

aiding the population and eventually find people beneath the

rubble," Peña Nieto said in a video posted on Facebook earlier

on Tuesday evening.

Rescue workers and soldiers toiled around collapsed

buildings where heat-sensing equipment suggested survivors could

still be trapped. Bystanders joined in where they could,

clearing debris with their bare hands or whatever tools they

could find nearby.

RT SirJadeja: BREAKING: Massive 7.1 Magnitude #Earthquake Strikes #Mexico City. Prayers 🙏🏾 #MexicoEarthquake #sismpic.twitter.com/VJWMCnuubg

— Sebastian Anthony (@sebastianant517) September 19, 2017

This was the view from the ground as a violent magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked Mexico https://t.co/aAmAoW7BB5 pic.twitter.com/R2zeGMvF3G

— CNN (@CNN) September 20, 2017

#MexicoCity- at Puelo Mall, elderly woman narrowly elude certain death! pic.twitter.com/aemsUNPCwX

— Che Osama (@cheyosama) September 20, 2017

"My wife is there," said Juan Jesus Garcia, 33, choking back

tears outside one building in Mexico City.

"I haven't been able to communicate with her. She is not

answering, and now they are telling us we have to turn off our

cellphones because there is a gas leak."

The quake had killed 49 people in the capital by late

Tuesday, according to civil defense chief Luis Felipe Puente.

The highest toll, he said, was in Morelos State, just to the

south, where 55 people were killed.

Another 13 people were reported killed in the neighboring

states of Mexico and Guerrero. Thirty-two deaths had been

counted in the central state of Puebla, also to the south, where

the US Geological Survey (USGS) located the quake's epicentre.

As many as 4.6 million homes, businesses and other

facilities had lost electricity, according to national power

company Comisión Federal de Electricidad. Most of them were in

the greater Mexico City area and in the states of Guerrero,

Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Tlaxcala.

In the capital, ambulances and fire engines confronted

gridlock as millions of workers tried to get home, many of them

after participating in annual readiness drills that commemorate

the previous disaster on this date in 1985.

Much of the country was also shaken when an 8.1 magnitude

quake, the strongest in more than eight decades, struck southern

Mexico on Sept. 7, killing at least 98 people.

20 kids & 2 adults died in a destroyed elementary school in #MexicoCity #earthquake https://t.co/45IGItZYRz pic.twitter.com/gfpKHaFfYB

— Benafactor (@alexissss1979) September 20, 2017

Drone footage shows destruction in Mexico City caused by the 7.1-magnitude earthquake; more than 100 confirmed dead https://t.co/z6UU6FW6Li pic.twitter.com/xrAjTp8qhV

— ABC News (@ABC) September 20, 2017

20 kids & 2 adults died in a destroyed elementary school in #MexicoCity #earthquake https://t.co/45IGItZYRz pic.twitter.com/gfpKHaFfYB

— Benafactor (@alexissss1979) September 20, 2017

Earthquakes of magnitude 7 or above are regarded as major

and are capable of causing widespread heavy damage. Another 11

aftershocks were registered after the initial quake at around

lunchtime on Tuesday, the most powerful of which measured 4.9,

according to the USGS.

In addition to the school, a supermarket and a factory

collapsed in the capital. Much of the damage was in the

fashionable Condesa and Roma districts near the city centre.

On Twitter, relatives posted pleas for news of family

members. At least one survivor was pulled from a collapsed

building in Condesa and another was rescued from a six-story

apartment building nearby.

Mexican media showed images of desperate locals forming

human chains in search of people still trapped in collapsed

buildings after nightfall. With power out in much of the city,

the work was carried out in the dark or with flashlights and

generators.

In Obrera, a central neighborhood in Mexico City, people

applauded when rescuers managed to retrieve four people alive,

with cheers of "si se puede," or "yes we can," ringing out.

Volunteers continued arriving throughout the night,

following calls from the civil protection agency, the Red Cross

and firefighters.

God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2017

Thinking about our neighbors in Mexico and all our Mexican-American friends tonight. Cuidense mucho y un fuerte abrazo para todos.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 20, 2017

Devastating news from Mexico City. My thoughts are with those affected by today’s earthquake - Canada will be ready to help our friends.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 19, 2017

In Puebla, university student Jevon Minto, 24, said he had

just arrived at class when he felt the shaking. "We were seated

when the place started shaking real, real hard ... You can

literally feel the fear and the panic in this city."

Banker Jesus Gonzalez Hernandez, 55, said office lamps and

furniture swayed when the tremor began. He and colleagues rushed

to evacuate. "But while exiting down the stairs, the walls were

coming apart," said Gonzalez Hernandez, who fractured his ankle

in the chaos.

Mexican stocks and the peso currency dropped on news of the

earthquake and Mexico's stock exchange suspended trading.

At the same time as the earthquake, Mexico's Popocatepetl

volcano had a small eruption. A church collapsed during mass,

killing 15 people, in Atzitzihuacan on the slopes of the

volcano, Puebla Governor Jose Antonio Gali said.

US President Donald Trump said on Twitter: "God bless the

people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for

you."

Reuters

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