Mexico quake toll tops 230
MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) - Mexican rescuers yesterday laboured for a second night amid the rubble to save possible survivors of the country’s most lethal earthquake in a generation, including a girl trapped under a school in Mexico City, as the death toll exceeded 230.
Television stations broadcast live the painstaking, hours-long attempt to rescue the girl after crews at the school in the south of the city reported seeing her hand move. They threaded a hose through debris to get her water.
The girl’s name was not made public, but her family waited in anguish nearby. Rescuers moved slowly, erecting makeshift wooden scaffolding to prevent rubble from crumbling further and seeking a path to the child through the unstable ruins. They implored bystanders to be quiet to better hear calls for help. It was part of the careful search for dozens of victims feared buried beneath the Enrique Rebsamen school, where officials reported 21 children and four adults dead after Tuesday’s quake. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed.
“We have a lot of hope that some will still be rescued,” said David Porras, one of scores of volunteers helping the search at the school for children aged 3 to 14. “But we’re slow, like turtles,” he said.
By Wednesday morning, the workers said a teacher and two students had sent text messages from within the rubble. Parents clung to hope that their children were alive.
The magnitude 7.1 quake, which killed at least 93 people in the capital, struck 32 years to the day after a 1985 earthquake that killed thousands. Mexico is also still reeling from a powerful tremor that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country less than two weeks ago.
On Wednesday afternoon, officials told bystanders to move back from the Plaza Condesa building which houses a well-known concert hall frequented by famous international acts and a popular bar in the upscale Condesa neighborhood.
The order sparked fears the massive building could collapse, just like an apartment block about 100 meters (yards) away where emergency crews spent Wednesday sifting though rubble. Throughout the capital, crews were joined by volunteers and bystanders who used dogs, cameras, motion detectors and heat-seeking equipment to detect victims who may still be alive.
Reinforcements began to arrive from countries including Panama, Israel and Chile, local media reported. In a statement, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said it was sending a Disaster Assistance Response Team to help, at the request of the Mexican government.