BURIED ALIVE
25 children crushed at school as Mexico quake kills hundreds
DOZENS of children were crushed to death in their school when a powerful earthquake killed hundreds in Mexico.
Emergency workers and volunteers battled to find survivors trapped in the rubble from the hundreds of buildings that collapsed during the 7.1-magnitude quake.
At least 225 people have been killed, although there are fears the death toll will rise as the rescuers continue their search.
Thousands were forced to flee their homes after the quake reduced buildings to piles of shattered masonry.
A primary school in Mexico City collapsed, with at least 25 children and two adults already found dead.
Last night a frantic search was underway for the 30 pupils and 15 adults still missing. There were hopes that some had survived after a young girl was spotted alive among the wreckage last night.
Tearful parents looked on as the remains of the Enrique Rebsamen school, which teaches children aged three to 14, was searched by specialist ‘mole’ teams, who managed to crawl deep into the mounds of crushed concrete. Adriana D’Fargo, whose seven-year-old daughter was still missing last night, said: ‘They keep pulling kids out but we know nothing of my daughter.’
Local doctor Pedro Serrano, 29, volunteered to crawl into the rubble and found a classroom with no survivors.
He said: ‘We saw some chairs and wooden tables. The next thing we saw was a leg, then we started to move rubble and found the bodies of a girl and two adults, a woman and a man.’ The disaster came 32 years to the day after Mexico suffered a massive quake that killed around 10,000 and left 100,000 homeless. Tuesday’s disaster struck at 1.14pm – two hours and 14 minutes after citizens took part in ‘anniversary drills’ to remember the killer tremor.
It follows another earthquake that killed 100 people in the south of the country less than two weeks ago.
The epicentre of the new quake was in Atencingo in the state of Puebla, some 75 miles south-east of Mexico City.
A total of 43 deaths were said to have occurred in Puebla, with 71 killed in the neighbouring state Morelos. However Mexico City was understood to have been hardest hit, with 86 people confirmed dead.
President Enrique Pena Nieto described the earthquake as a ‘very painful test for our country’ and urged citizens to stay in their homes if they could do so safely to give emergency vehicles better access to the streets. Last night some 3,500 soldiers had been deployed to help the rescue effort.