Mexico earthquake:
Death toll passes 60 after one of Mexico’s biggest quakes.
MEXICO CITY — The extent of destruction is still emerging after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck Mexico’s southern coast, toppling hundreds of buildings, cutting power to 1.8 million people and sending panicked people fleeing into the streets in the middle of the night. At least 61 people were reported dead.
The quake that hit minutes before midnight Thursday was strong enough to cause buildings to sway violently in the capital city more than 650 miles away. As beds banged against walls, people still wearing pajamas ran out of their homes and gathered in frightened groups.
Rodrigo Soberanes, who lives near San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, the state nearest the epicenter, said his house “moved like chewing gum.”
The furious shaking created a second national emergency for Mexican agencies already bracing for Hurricane Katia on the other side of the country. The system struck the Gulf Coast late Friday north of Tecolutla in Veracruz state as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph that could bring lifethreatening floods.
The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency confirmed the deaths of 45 people in the southern state of Oaxaca. Another 12 people died in Chiapas and four more in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
The worst-hit city appeared to be Juchitan, on the narrow waist of Oaxaca known as the Isthmus, where 36 quake victims died.
About half of Juchitan’s city hall collapsed in a pile of rubble and streets were littered with the debris of ruined houses. A hospital also collapsed,. President Enrique Peña Nieto said after touring the city and meeting with residents. The patients were relocated to other facilities.
The president said authorities were working to re-establish the supply of water and food and provide medical attention to those who need it. He vowed the government would help people rebuild and called for people to come together.
“The power of this earthquake was devastating, but we are certain that the power of unity, the power of solidarity and the power of shared responsibility will be greater,” Peña Nieto said.
Mexico City escaped major damage, but the quake terrified sleeping residents, many of whom still remember the catastrophic 1985 earthquake that killed thousands and devastated large parts of the city.
Families were jerked awake by the grating howl of the capital’s seismic alarm. Some shouted as they dashed out of rocking apartment buildings. Even the iconic Angel of Independence Monument swayed as the quake’s waves rolled through the city’s soft soil.
Elsewhere, the Interior Department reported that 428 homes were destroyed and 1,700 were damaged in various cities and towns in Chiapas.
“Homes made of clay tiles and wood collapsed,” said Nataniel Hernandez, a human rights worker living in Tonala, Chiapas, who warned that inclement weather threatened to bring more down.
“Right now it is raining very hard in Tonala, and with the rains it gets much more complicated because the homes were left very weak, with cracks,” Hernandez said by phone.
The earthquake’s impact was blunted somewhat by the fact that it was centered 100 miles offshore. It hit off Chiapas’ Pacific coast, near the Guatemalan border with a magnitude of 8.1 — equal to Mexico’s strongest quake of the past century. It was slightly stronger than the 1985 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake’s epicenter was 102 miles west of Tapachula in Chiapas, with a depth of 43.3 miles, the USGS said.
Dozens of strong aftershocks rattled the region in the following hours.
The quake also triggered tsunami warnings and some tall waves, but there was no major damage from the sea.