Rescuers in gloomy search for survivors
MEXICO CITY — Rescuers dug yesterday for survivors of a 7.1- magnitude earthquake that killed at least 230 people in Mexico, as the nation watched anxiously for signs of life at a collapsed school in the capital.
Firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers worked frantically to remove rubble in scenes repeated across a swath of central states in Mexico's second killer earthquake this month.
The most agonizing search was at a school in the south of Mexico City where 21 children -- aged between seven and 13 -- and five adults were crushed to death. Many children were still missing.
By Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after the quake struck, rescuers working under the gaze of anguished parents had managed to locate several signs of life under the rubble using a thermal scanner.
"They are alive! Alive!" shouted Civil Protection volunteer Enrique Garcia, 37. "Someone hit a wall several times in one place, and in another there was a response to light signals with a lamp," he said.
"We have been at this since yesterday, but we cannot reach them, because they are trapped between two slabs..."
So far, 11 children and at least one teacher have been rescued from the rubble of the Enrique Rebsamen elementary and middle school.
"No one can possibly imagine the pain I'm in right now," said one mother, Adriana Fargo, who was standing outside what remained of the school waiting for news of her seven-year-old daughter.
In the Condesa neighborhood, Karen Guzman sat on a stool in the street with her back to one of the collapsed buildings. She said she could not bear the tension of the search for around 30 people thought to be under the rubble, among them her brother.
Beside her were two street poles tagged with lists