Mexico quake kills 225; Amir condoles
Frantic search for survivors
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 20, (Agencies): His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent Wednesday a cable to President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto, expressing his condolences over the earthquake which hit his country.
His Highness the Amir said that Kuwait stands in solidarity with Mexico during this time of despair, hoping that the friendly nation would overcome the aftermath of the quake that left hundreds of people either dead or injured and also caused some considerable damage. His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah sent similar cables.
Rescue workers, meanwhile, scrabbled through piles of rubble on Wednesday in a harrowing search for dozens of children feared buried under a Mexico City school, among hundreds of buildings destroyed by the country’s most lethal earthquake in a generation.
The magnitude 7.1 quake on Tuesday killed at least 225 people, nearly half of them in the capital, 32 years to the day after a devastating 1985 quake. 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.
Among the twisted concrete and steel ruin of the Enrique Rebsamen school, soldiers and firefighters found the bodies of at least 22 children and two adults, while another 30 children and 12 adults were missing, President Enrique Pena Nieto said. The public school is for children aged 3 to 14.
Hundreds of neighbors and emergency workers spent the night pulling rubble from the ruins of the school with their bare hands under the glare of floodlights. Three survivors were found at around midnight as volunteer rescue teams known as “moles” crawled deep under the rubble.
On 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.
“They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter,” said 32-year-old Adriana D’Fargo, her eyes red, who had been waiting for hours for news of her seven-year-old.
Overnight, volunteers with bullhorns shouted the names of rescued kids so that tense family members could be reunited with them.
The earthquake toppled dozens of buildings, tore gas mains and sparked fires across the city and other towns in central Mexico. Falling rubble and billboards crushed cars.
Even wealthier parts of the capital, including the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, were badly damaged as older buildings buckled. Because bedrock is uneven in a city built on a drained lake bed, some districts weather quakes better than others.
Parts of colonial-era churches crumbled in the adjacent state of Puebla, where the US Geological Survey (USGS) put the quake’s epicenter some 100 miles (158 kms) southwest of the capital.
Around the same time that the earth shook, Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, visible from the capital on a clear day, had a small eruption. On its slopes, a church in Atzitzihuacan collapsed during Mass, killing 15 people, Puebla Governor Jose Antonio Gali said.
In Rome, Pope Francis said he was praying for Mexico, a majority Catholic country. “In this moment of pain, I want to express my closeness and prayers to all the beloved Mexican people,” he said.
US President Donald Trump said in a tweet: “God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.”
Residents of Mexico City, home to some 20 million people, slept in the streets while authorities and volunteers distributed food and water at tented collection centers.
Other volunteers, soldiers and firefighters formed human chains and dug with hammers and picks to find dustcovered survivors and bodies in the remains of apartment buildings, schools and a factory.