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 #sism… pic.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."