Dayton Daily News

Aftershock­s still hitting Mexico; death toll now 90

Many people in the south sleeping outside in fear.

- By Christophe­r Sherman

Life for JUCHITAN, MEXICO — many has moved outdoors in the quake-shocked city of Juchitan, where a third of the homes are reported uninhabita­ble and repeated aftershock­s have scared peo- ple away from many structures still standing.

The city on Sunday was littered with rubble from Thursday night’s magnitude 8.1 earthquake, which killed at least 90 people across southern Mexico — some three dozen of them in Juchitan itself.

Officials in Oaxaca and Chiapas states said thousands of houses and hundreds of schools had been damaged or destroyed. Hundreds of

thousands of people were reported to be without water service.

Many people continued to sleep outside, fearful of more collapses, as strong after- shocks continued to rattle the town, including a mag- nitude 5.2 jolt early Sunday.

Some Juchitecos seeking solace trekked through the destructio­n to find an openair Mass on Sunday since many of churches were either damaged or left vacant until they could be checked. Along a street lined with obliter- ated homes, the Rev. Ranulfo Pacheco delivered a homily to a couple dozen people on wooden pews that had been toted onto the patio in front of his Our Lord of Esquipulas church.

Local officials said they had counted nearly 800 aftershock­s of all sizes since the big quake, and the U.S.

Geological Survey counted nearly 60 with a magnitude of 4.5 or greater.

Oaxaca Gov. Alejandro Murat said Sunday that the death toll in his state had risen to 71, while officials have reported 19

Juc hit an’ sd own town streets grew increasing­ly congested Sunday with dump trucks and heavy equipment to haul away debris. Smaller piles of debris were pushed

into larger mountains of rubble.

Teams of soldiers and federal police armed with shovels and sledgehamm­ers fanned out across neighborho­ods to help demolish damaged buildings. Other groups distribute­d boxes of food.

But help was slower to arrive in Union Hidalgo, a town of about 20,000 people about 30 minutes to the east.

Collapsed homes pocked neighborho­ods there, and the town lacked electricit­y,

r and cellphone service. Delia Cruz Valencia stood in a puddle-filled street overseeing demolition of what remained of her sister’s house next door. Her sister took their mother for medical treatment outside the city before the earthquake

and had not been able to make her way back.

Men with pry bars ripped away the bottom half of a brick and stucco exterior wall to rescue a large wooden wardrobe because the house was too unstable to access through the door.

Cruz said she was next door with her two daughters when the earthquake struck shortly before midnight Thursday.

all three hugged, but even so we were moving. We were pushed from here to there” by the rolling earth, she said.

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