Massive quake shakes Mexico
8.2 tremor topples buildings and homes leaving 15 dead in southern coast
MEXICO CITY: One of the most powerful earthquakes ever to strike Mexico has hit off its southern coast, killing at least 15 people, toppling houses and businesses and sending panicked people into the streets more than 1,000km away.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake hit off Chiapas state near the Guatemalan border with a magnitude as 8.1 – slightly stronger than the magnitude 8 quake of 1985 that killed thousands and devastated large parts of Mexico City.
National civil defence chief Luis Felipe Puente told the Televisa network that at least 15 people had died, 10 of them in Oaxaca, also close to the epicentre.
Hundreds of buildings collapsed or were damaged, power was cut at least briefly to more than 1.8 million people and authorities closed schools yesterday in at least 11 states to check them for safety.
“The house moved like chewing gum and the light and Internet went out momentarily,” said Rodrigo Soberanes, who lives near the Chiapas state city of San Cristobal de las Casas.
The US Geological Survey recorded at least 20 aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 or greater within about five hours after the main shake, and the president warned that a major aftershock as large as magnitude 7.2 could occur.
The USGS said the quake struck at 11.49pm local time on Thursday and its epicentre was 165km west of Tapachula in Chiapas. It had a depth of 69.7km.
The quake caused buildings to sway violently in Mexico’s capital more than 1,000km away. As beds banged against walls, people still wearing pajamas fled into the streets, gathering in frightened groups.
Chiapas Gov Manuel Velasco said that three people were killed in San Cristobal, including two women who died when a house and a wall collapsed. He called on people liv- ing near the coast to leave their houses as a protective measure.
“There is damage to hospitals that have lost energy,” he said. “Homes, schools and hospitals have been damaged.”
Tabasco Gov Arturo Nunez said two children had died in his Gulf coast state. One of them was killed when a wall collapsed, and the other was a baby who died in a children’s hospital that lost electricity, cutting off the infant’s ventilator.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of one metre above the tide level were measured off Salina Cruz, Mexico.
Smaller tsunami waves were observed on the coast or measured by ocean gauges in several other places.
The centre’s forecast said Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala could see waves of a metre or less. No threat was posed to Hawaii and the western and South Pacific.
Mexican authorities said they were evacuating some residents of coastal Tonala and Puerto Madero because of the warning.
The quake hit as Mexican emergency agencies were bracing for another crisis on the other side of the country.
The US National Hurricane Center said Hurricane Katia was likely to strike the Gulf coast in the state of Veracruz early Saturday as a Category 2 storm could bring life-threatening floods.
In neighbouring Guatemala, President Jimmy Morales spoke on national television to call for calm while emergency crews checked for damage.
The quake occurred in a very seismically active region near the point of collision between three tectonic plates, the Cocos, the Caribbean and the North American. — AP