Despair rises after Mexico quake

Much-reported story of trapped girl called mistaken

MEXICO CITY - As painstaking attempts to reach survivors in quakeravaged buildings across Mexico City stretched into a third day Thursday, desperation mounted among loved ones who earlier had high hopes for quick rescues.

And what many had clung to as the unlikely triumph of life over death was revealed to be a case of some very high-profile misinformation: A top navy official announced there were no missing children at a collapsed Mexico City school where the purported plight of a girl trapped alive in the rubble had captivated people across the nation and abroad.

President Enrique Pena Nieto’s office raised the death toll from Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake to 273, including 137 in the capital. In a statement, it said there were also 73 deaths in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 13 in the state of Mexico, six in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.

More than 2,000 were injured and more than 50 people rescued in Mexico City alone, including two women and a man pulled from the wreckage of a building in the city’s center Wednesday night.

Since Wednesday, the eyes of the nation had been focused on the Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, where rescuers told reporters a girl, identified only as Frida Sofia, had signaled she was alive deep in the rubble by wiggling her fingers in response to rescuers’ shouts.

As the rescue effort continued Thursday, no family members came forward to identify the girl. Then on Thursday afternoon, Navy Assistant Secretary Enrique Sarmiento announced that while someone could be alive beneath the school, all its children had been accounted for.