Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Texts of terror
Quake kids send messages from rubble of school where 20 of their pals were killed
CHILDREN trapped in the rubble of an earthquake-flattened school sent Whatsapp texts pleading for help as the search for survivors continued.
At least 25 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, which was devastated in Tuesday’s 7.1-magnitude quake that killed at least 217 across Mexico.
As rescuers continued to sift through the rubble, a pupil called Fatima sent a text telling relatives: “I’m with four other trapped children. Help us. We’re thirsty.”
Eleven people had been rescued alive by last night and a specialist team was working to free another little girl found alive in the rubble. But with 38 missing the death toll could rise, warned President Enrique Pena Nieto at the site.
He added: “There are 30 children and eight adults still missing. Rescue operations are ongoing.”
The Queen sent the President a message of sympathy, which read: “I was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and the devastation. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected.”
Volunteer rescuer Dr Pedro Serrano, 29, told how he found three bodies in a classroom of the school, which serves children of all ages. He said: “We dug holes, then crawled in on our bellies. We managed to get into a collapsed classroom. We saw a leg, then we moved rubble and found a girl, a woman and a man.” Firefighters, police and local volunteers worked their way through flattened concrete slabs as relatives and teachers searched through lists of names to see who was unaccounted for. A dramatic video showed two small children being rescued.
One mum, Adriana D’fargo, 32, said: “They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter.”
More than 200 schools in Mexico City have been hit by the 7.1-magnitude quake, 15 suffering major damage.
Some 40% of the capital Mexico City and 60% of nearby Morelos state were left without power, hampering search efforts. Buildings fell at 44 sites in the capital alone, said the city’s mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera. The quake came less than two weeks after a magnitude 8.1 earthquake hit off Mexico’s southern coast, killing more than 90 people.
Last night a quake rattled Japan’s east coast, just 200 miles from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The 6.2-magnitude tremor struck 175 miles from Kamaishi, in northern Japan, the American scientific agency said. A tsunami sparked by an earthquake in 2011 caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.