MEXICO REELS FROM POWERFUL QUAKE
Rescuers scrabble through quake rubble in Mexico
Rescue workers, firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers search for survivors Wednesday in a flattened building in Mexico City as Mexico deals with the aftermath of a powerful earthquake that leveled scores of buildings and killed at least 225 people. In one incident Wednesday, rescuers, some using their bare hands, found a young girl alive under the rubble of a school that collapsed. The discovery raised hope — already dimming — of more survivors trapped beneath pancaked structures.
Police, firefighters and ordinary Mexicans, some using only bare hands, found a young girl alive Wednesday under the rubble of a school that collapsed in a powerful earthquake that leveled scores of buildings and killed 225 people.
The magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked the capital and surrounding area Tuesday, 32 years to the day after a major quake devastated the capital city in 1985.
A number of the fatalities occurred at two schools, including 25 dead at the Enrique Rebsamen School. All but four of the dead were children, according to the federal Education Department.
The tragic site also held a sign of hope Wednesday that some children survived beneath the pancaked structure.
Rescuers spotted a young girl buried in the rubble and shouted at her to move her hand if she could hear them. She did. A search dog sent into the debris confirmed she was alive.
Authorities asked the public to bring lamps and mirrors to help in the search for more possible survivors.
At least 30 children and eight adults remained missing at the school, which Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto visited Tuesday, Animal Politico reports.
Teams on the scene in southern Mexico City used whatever means available — including bare hands — to claw through the rubble all night. Having barely enough room to move, Pedro Serrano, 29, a doctor, managed to make it into a collapsed classroom only to find all occupants dead.
“We dug holes, then crawled in on our bellies,” Serrano told The Associated Press.
“We managed to get into a collapsed classroom. We saw some chairs and wooden tables. 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,” he said.
A second school, the Tecnológico de Monterrey campus in Mexico City, was the scene of numerous fatalities. Five people were killed and 40 injured at the school, which is part of a chain of private universities that educates the children of many of the country’s elites.
Many of those in the streets said the force of the quake was as strong as the earthquake in 1985, which killed about 9,500 people, destroyed about 100,000 homes and reduced parts of the city to rubble.
That quake, a stronger magnitude 8.1, was one of several over the past few decades to hit Mexico, one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
“This was the same as 1985. It shook bad,” said Gustavo de la Cruz, a parking lot attendant. He spotted a light fixture falling from a pole but said the damage appeared less severe than the last time. “That 1985 earthquake wrecked Mexico City,” he said.