Frantic search for survivors

WE WON’T STOP LOOKING, VOWS ARMY CHIEF Rumours, ‘rescue’ of fictitous schoolgirl angers a battered nation.

Rescuers swarmed over rubble with shovels and picks in a torturous search for survivors days after Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in a generation, while politicians sought to outdo each other in donating party funds to help victims.

As the arduous search through mountains of debris continued, signs of exhaustion crept in following Tuesday’s 7.1-magnitude quake that killed at least 282 people, with growing discontent and rumours swirling online.

Mexico’s Navy apologised for communicating incorrect information in a story that captivated the nation of a fictitious schoolgirl, supposedly trapped under a collapsed school in Mexico City and dubbed Frida Sofia by local media. The high-profile televised blunder led to anger.

Officials also sought to quash rumours that the military would be bulldozing razed buildings deemed unlikely to harbour survivors. “We won’t suspend the search-and-rescue mission we’ve been given until we find the last of the survivors,” army chief Salvador Cienfuegos said on Twitter.

In hard-hit Mexico City, rescue efforts focused on 10 collapsed buildings where people may still be alive. About 52 buildings collapsed in the capital, with more in the surrounding states. Mexico City mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said 50 people were missing.

Working without pause since the massive quake, responders and volunteers have saved 60 survivors.

Luis Manuel Carrillo Nunez, 14, said he was in a yoga class at the Enrique Rebsamen private school 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.

“It’s hard to know that you’re not going to see again the friends that you loved,” he said.

The full scale of damage has not been calculated. –