Signs of life as hope for quake kids soars
RESCUERS dug for survivors of a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 230 people in Mexico as the nation watched anxiously for signs of life at a collapsed school in the capital.
Firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers worked frantically to remove rubble in scenes repeated across a swath of central states in Mexico’s second killer earthquake this month.
The most agonising search was at a school in the south of Mexico City where 21 children – aged between seven and 13 – and five adults were crushed to death. Many children were still missing.
By Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after the quake struck, rescuers working under the gaze of anguished parents had managed to locate several signs of life under the rubble using a thermal scanner.
“They are alive! Alive!” shouted Civil Protection volunteer Enrique Garcia, 37.
“Someone hit a wall several times in one place, and in another there was a response to light signals with a lamp.
“We have been at this since yesterday, but we cannot reach them, because they are trapped between two slabs ...”
So far, 11 children and at least one teacher have been rescued from the rubble of the Enrique Rebsamen elementary and middle school.
“No one can possibly imagine the pain I’m in right now,” said one mother, Adriana Fargo, who was standing outside what remained of the school waiting for news of her seven-year-old daughter.
Mexico City mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told Televisa TV that 39 buildings in the capital had collapsed. Searches were under way in all but five where rescuers had determined that nobody remained trapped, he said.
At least 53 people have been found alive in two of the collapsed buildings.
Many residents were preparing to spend a second night in parks and plazas, in tents or makeshift shelters, unable or unwilling to return to their homes as authorities inspected damaged buildings.