Where there’s life, there’s hope
Mexico earthquake rescue workers are energised by signs there may be survivors in rubble of school
Rescue workers throughout Mexico City yesterday worked furiously to save people they could hear below the rubble of the dozens of buildings that collapsed after an earthquake on Tuesday, which killed more than 200 people.
The rescue of a girl buried in the rubble of her school became a day-long vigil for Mexico, much of it broadcast across the nation yesterday.
Emergency crews struggled in rain and darkness, trying to pick away unstable debris after the sight of her wriggling fingers on Wednesday became a symbol of hope for thousands of rescue workers and volunteers.
They worked frantically at dozens of wrecked buildings across the capital and nearby states, looking for survivors of the 7.1-magnitude quake that killed at least 245 people in central Mexico and injured more than 2,000.
Mexico City’s mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, said the number of confirmed dead in the capital had risen from 100 to 115 and that 38 buildings had collapsed.
Mr Mancera said two women and a man had been pulled alive from a collapsed office building in the city centre on Wednesday night, 36 hours after the quake.
Even as Enrique Pena Nieto, the president, declared three days of mourning, soldiers, police, firefighters and everyday citizens kept digging, some with their hands, gaining an inch at a time while cranes and mechanical diggers lifted slabs of concrete.
“There are three more floors from which to remove rubble – and you still hear people in there,” said Evodio Dario Marcelino, a volunteer at a collapsed apartment building.
A man was pulled alive and conscious from a partly collapsed residential building in northern Mexico City more than 24 hours after the quake on Tuesday.
In all, 52 people have been rescued.
It was a race against time, Mr Pena Nieto said: “Every minute counts to save lives.”
But the country’s attention focused on the Enrique Rebsamen school on the city’s south side, where 21 children and four adults were confirmed dead.
Hopes rose on Wednesday when workers said a girl was alive and speaking to them through a hole dug in the rubble. Thermal imaging suggested several more people might be in the airspace around her.
Dr Alfredo Vega, who was working with the rescue team, said that the girl, who he identified as Frida Sofia, was alive under the pancaked floor slabs.
“She is telling us that there are five more children alive,” Dr Vega said.
While optimism was high for the girl’s rescue, only four corpses had been found in the wreckage during the day, Mr Mendez said.
The debris removed from the school changed as crews worked their way deeper, from huge chunks of brick and concrete, to pieces of wood that looked like remnants of desks and panelling, to a load that contained a half dozen sparkly hula-hoops.
Rescuers carried in wide steel pipe big enough for someone to crawl through, trying to create a tunnel into the collapsed structure. But heavy rain fell at night and the tottering pile had to be shored up.
People have rallied to help from all walks of life in Mexico City, where social classes seldom mix. Doctors, dentists and lawyers stood alongside building workers and street sweepers, moving buckets of debris or chunks of concrete hand to hand down the line.
At a collapsed factory building closer to the city’s centre, giant cranes lifted huge slabs of concrete from the towering pile of rubble, like peeling layers from an onion.
Government rescue worker Alejandro Herrera said three bodies were found on Wednesday afternoon at the factory.
“There are sounds but we don’t know if it is the sound of the rubble,” Mr Herrera said.
Mexico City police said rescue workers clearing wreckage from a collapsed medical laboratory in the Roma neighbourhood found and rescued 40 rabbits and 13 rats.
The federal civil defence agency said 69 people died in Morelos state and 43 in Puebla state, the quake’s epicentre.
In Atzala, Puebla state, 11 family members died in a church when it crumbled during a baptism for a two-month-old girl. The only ones to survive were the baby’s father, the priest and the priest’s assistant.