Thousands seek refuge after devastating disaster
MEXICO CITY — On rubber mats spread across a Mexico City recreation center, the Montero family cuddles under donated wool blankets, their first new possessions after abandoning their apartment after the deadly 7.1-magnitude earthquake.
Across the capital, thousands of Mexicans are now believed homeless after the tremor leveled entire buildings and left others teetering on the edge of collapse. Men, women and children are now filling up gyms and event halls at more than two dozen designated shelters. Many are uncertain where they will go next, but grateful to have a safe refuge.
“I am sure nothing is going to fall here,” 7-yearold Oscar Montero says.
At one plaza where rescue workers gathered to organize supplies Tuesday night, panic spread swiftly after people shouted that they’d seen a damaged building start to sway.
The Montero family lived on the first floor of a seven-story apartment building that became perilously sandwiched between neighboring towers on each side that have begun caving in. No one in the family of five was home during the quake. Oscar and his two older siblings were all at school, his parents at work.
Claudia Antonio, Oscar’s mother, entered the home quickly the quake after to salvage her children’s birth certificates and vaccination records. Other neighbors pulled out valuables such as fridges and microwaves. In the first night after the tremor, some slept outside with the items they had pulled from the wobbly buildings.
The Montero family decided they would go to the Junior Club recreation center.
“Material things come and go,” Antonio, 38, said. “What I value most is our lives.”
The Junior Club is typically a place where children come to swim in the lap pool and adults spin on gym bikes. In the days since the quake it has become one of countless makeshift homes of refuge, receiving piles of donated bottled water, baby diapers and toys.