Mexico focuses search for quake survivors on 10 buildings; 273 dead

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) - Rescuers swarmed over rubble with shovels and picks yesterday in a frantic search for survivors two days after Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in a generation, focusing on 10 collapsed buildings where people may still be alive.

Those trapped included five Taiwanese workers in a textile factory in downtown Mexico City.

But the Navy said a missing schoolgirl whose fate captured the nation “did not exist,” leading to an outpouring of anger over the mix-up.

The death toll was at least 273, officials said. Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said 50 people were not accounted for.

Working without pause since Tuesday afternoon’s 7.1-magnitude quake, first responders and volunteers have saved 60 survivors from central Mexico City to poor neighbourhoods far to the south.

Late on Wednesday night, an eight-year-old girl was rescued from a collapsed building in the Tlalpan neighbourhood, nearly 36 hours after the quake, local officials said.

Luis Manuel Carrillo Nunez, 14, said he was in a yoga class at the Enrique Rebsamen private school on Tuesday when he heard people yell, “It’s shaking!”

He ran to escape the building as it began collapsing.

But some classmates never made it out.