2 dead as strong quake shakes Mexico
A STRONG earthquake jolted Mexico yesterday, leaving at least two people dead as residents rushed into the streets of the capital in the middle of the night days after another powerful tremor.
A woman died in Mexico City after falling down stairs and hitting her head when the quake triggered early warning alarms, while a second victim in the capital suffered a heart attack, authorities said.
The epicentre of the 6.9-magnitude quake was near the Pacific coast, 84km south of Coalcoman, the national seismological agency reported.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the magnitude at 6.8. It was the strongest of more than 1 200 aftershocks from a magnitude 7.7 quake that struck the same area on Monday, the national seismological agency said.
That tremor left two dead in western Mexico, damaged several thousand buildings and sparked panic more than 400km away in Mexico City.
The latest quake again triggered alarms in the capital and caused buildings to shake and sway. Many people quickly evacuated their homes when the alarms sounded, some still in pajamas and carrying their pet dogs.
“We had a 6.9 magnitude aftershock with an epicentre in Coalcoman,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Twitter. “Unfortunately, two people lost their lives in Mexico City,” he said, adding there were no reports of victims in the states of Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco.
Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said official helicopters had flown over the capital.
“So far there is no damage in the city after the earthquake,” she tweeted.
The quake hit at a depth of 12km, according to the national seismological agency, while the USGS estimated the depth at 24km, about 410 km from Mexico City.
Monday’s tremor came less than an hour after millions of people in Mexico City participated in emergency drills on the anniversary of two deadly earthquakes in 1985 and 2017.
The timing was no more than a coincidence, the national seismological agency said.
On September 19, 1985, an 8.1-magnitude quake killed more than 10 000 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings. On the anniversary of that earthquake in 2017, a magnitude 7.1 quake left around 370 people dead, mainly in the capital.
In Monday’s earthquake, a man was killed by falling debris in a shopping centre in Manzanillo. A woman later died of injuries caused by a falling wall in the same city.
Mexico sits in the world’s most seismically and volcanically active zone, known as the Ring of Fire, where the Pacific plate meets surrounding tectonic plates. Mexico City, which together with surrounding urban areas is home to more than 20 million people, is built in a natural basin filled with the sediment of a former lake, making it particularly vulnerable to earthquakes.
The capital has an early warning alarm system using seismic monitors that aims to give residents enough time to evacuate buildings when earthquakes hit seismic zones near the Pacific coast.