Despair rises in hard-hit Mexico
Quake’s death toll at 273 as search for girl ‘not a reality’
MEXICO CITY — Scenes of desolation and rejoicing unspooled Thursday at the sites of buildings crumbled by Mexico’s earthquake, which killed at least 273 people and galvanized heroic efforts to reach those trapped.
But a parallel drama transpired as the government announced there were no missing children in the ruins of a collapsed school — after the country was transfixed for a night and a day by reports of a young girl, dubbed “Frida Sofia,” signaling to rescuers from under the rubble.
Outrage ensued over what many Mexicans believed was a deliberate deception.
On Thursday afternoon, the Mexican navy reported that there was no sign that any child was missing and alive in the rubble of the Enrique Rebsamen school on Mexico City's south side, where at least 19 children and six adults had died.
“All of the children are unfortunately dead,” navy Assistant Secretary Angel Enrique Sarmiento said, “or safe at home.”
Mexico's larger tragedy continued to unfold as rescuers in three states, battling grinding fatigue and mountains of rubble, raced against time, keenly aware of ever-dwindling odds of finding people alive beneath the debris after Tuesday's magnitude 7.1 temblor.
More than 2,000 people were injured, and the overall death count was expected to climb.
Approaching the 48hour mark since the quake, rescuers at sites across Mexico City used search dogs and calls to cellphones of those trapped inside to try to pinpoint the location of anyone who had survived two nights under damaged buildings.
Outside quake-wrecked buildings, successful rescues heartened everyone.
Cheers erupted overnight at the site of a collapsed multistory office building in the Mexico City neighborhood of La Condesa, where rescuers pulled three people alive from the rubble, witnesses said. More were believed still trapped, authorities said.
Shows of solidarity were everywhere.
On Thursday morning, volunteers armed with shovels lined up near the rescue site to relieve those who had been moving rubble all night. Other volunteers handed out coffee, sandwiches and chilaquiles — a popular Mexican breakfast dish —to dust-covered rescuers.
A stream of cars pulled up at makeshift donation centers: ordinary people dropping off food, water, gloves, hard hats and protective face masks.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has declared three days of national mourning, on Thursday paid a hospital visit to those injured in the quake.
An elite team of disaster experts, including a U.S. urban search-and-rescue team-from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, landed in Mexico City to aid in relief efforts.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID, reported the arrival of its Disaster Assistance Response Team, along with more than 60 firefighters and five highly trained dogs.
The USAID team, requested by the Mexican government, will conduct damage assessments, search for victims and coordinate with local authorities and aid groups to bring assistance to those most affected.
As dawn broke, rescue efforts pushed ahead in neighborhoods rich and poor.
Hours earlier, in La Condesa, a woman’s faint voice could hardly be heard under a pile of rubble that had been her second-story apartment. Rescuers thought there could be up to four people under the collapsed ruins.
Standing atop the building’s remains Wednesday night, firefighters, soldiers and volunteers peeled back entire floors in slices, digging past people’s belongings: books, blankets, clothes, an ironing board. Couches and pillows went flying.
The rescuers demanded silence.
One of them stuck his head down into the void, calling for anyone there to answer if they could. But it was still too loud. Generators and vehicles were turned off. Small chatter subsided.
“We need absolute silence,” the worker said. “Please.”
From a few dozen yards away, the voice sounded like a whisper. The rescuers waited. The trapped woman called to them again. People stood still, captivated. Some of them wept. A woman broke the silence, yelling over a megaphone: “She is Lorna. She’s on the second floor.”
The woman said Lorna’s family was trying to call her. Seconds later, a phone chimed from inside the pile.
After Lorna spoke, the workers quickened their pace, passing buckets of concrete down lines of volunteers to a truck for disposal. A storm had come into the city around 7:30 p.m., pummeling the site with rain. Late Thursday, the woman’s fate was unknown.
At 5 a.m., rescuers recovered another body from the building: that of Gabriela Jaen Pimienta, 44 —found hugging her Chihuahua, also dead. She had lived on the fifth floor with her husband and daughter, who both survived the quake, said relatives who had kept a day-and-night vigil.