‘Small noises’ haunt crews

CLASSROOMS BECAME coffins at a Mexico City elementary school after a powerful earthquake collapsed a wing of the building, killing more than 20 students and leaving two of their classmates missing.

Firefighters, police officers, soldiers and passersby (pictured) clawed frantically through the rubble of the Colegio Enrique Rebsamen in southern Mexico City in the hours after a 7.1 magnitude temblor rumbled through the region Tuesday afternoon.

Rescue workers, using thermal, sound and movement sensors, formed an assembly line to dig through the cinder blocks and siding of what was once a vibrant school full of learning and promise.

Mexico Education Minister Aurelio Nuno said 21 children and four adults died, a fraction of the 245 people who died across the region. The building was one of 16 schools in Mexico City that were heavily damaged.

“They were small children,” one volunteer told reporters. “I mean, children that couldn’t defend themselves.”

Eleven people had been rescued at the three-story school by late Wednesday, and officials said three people were still missing — two children and a teacher. Students at the school range between ages 3 and 14.

A girl was found beneath the rubble at about 9:45 a.m. local time Wednesday, the Foro TV network reported. The girl was eventually rescued hours later.

Volunteers rushed to the scene and forced themselves through openings in the debris as anxious parents looked on. Strangers provided bottles of water and tortillas to help sustain the effort.

“We can hear small noises,” Pedro Serrano, a 29-year-old doctor who volunteered to help, told the Associated Press. “We don’t know if they’re coming from above or below — from the walls crumbling above or from someone below calling for help.”

The doctor said he pushed himself deeper into the school, where he eventually found a classroom as well as several bodies.

“We saw some chairs and wooden tables,” he said. “The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults — a woman and a man.” All three were dead. But spirits were lifted as night fell and rescuers made contact with a 12-year-old girl, and expanded their search after temperature readings suggested two others might be alive inside, Foro TV reported.