Hopes of finding earthquake survivors in Mexico City dwindle
MEXICO CITY — Five days after the deadly magnitude 7.1 earthquake, the hulking wreckage of what used to be a seven-storey office building is essentially the last hope; one of just two sites left where searchers believe they may still find someone trapped alive in Mexico City.
Among the families of the missing, there are periodic moments when spirits lift. A flurry of activity, or relatives are summoned to the search site, raising hopes that someone has been found.
But despair deepens when the work slows or even stops, when rain or an aftershock threatens the stability of the tottering pile, and as day after day passes without their loved ones emerging.
For the family of Adrian Moreno, one of the missing, the emotional roller-coaster is getting to be too much. Moreno’s mother has a look of anguish and has largely stopped being able to speak. His boyfriend, Dario Hernandez, looks lost, his gaze tearstained and unfocussed.
“Just hearing the earthquake alarm was horrible,” Hernandez said of a siren that rang during a 6.1 quake Saturday that was an aftershock of an even earlier and bigger earthquake on Sept. 7.
“Something moves and ...” he said, his voice trailing away at the unspeakable thought the whole pile could suddenly collapse. “There is a lot of nervousness, a lot of desperation. ... This is the worst thing I have ever seen in my life, the worst.”
A total of 38 buildings in the Mexican capital — mostly apartment blocks or office buildings — collapsed in the Sept. 19 earthquake, and the first days saw a dramatic scramble with picks, shovels and bare hands to reach survivors.
Mexican marines, the lead force in many of the rescue efforts, said they had recovered 102 bodies and rescued 115 people alive from buildings toppled by the quake, which has killed 320 people including 182 in the capital alone, according to the latest death toll announced Sunday.
Thousands more have been left homeless because their houses or apartment buildings, while still standing, have been inspected and deemed uninhabitable.
Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera reported that 7,649 properties have been examined and 87 per cent of those are safe and require only minor repairs. But that means about 1,000 left standing have been determined to be uninhabitable — and the number seemed likely to rise as more are inspected.
One by one the searches have closed down in recent days, after sniffer dogs were sent in and didn’t find life and thermal imaging devices turned up no body heat signatures. Then heavy machinery moved in to begin removing the mountains of debris. Empty lots began to appear where just days ago a building stood.