RESIDENTS DIG WITH RESCUERS AS MEXICO EARTHQUAKE TOLL RISES
▶ Search of collapsed primary school continues in rubble of densely populated Mexico City
The death toll from the powerful earthquake that shook central Mexico on Tuesday has risen to at least 248.
Dozens of buildings tumbled into rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico City and nearby states. Mayor Miguel Mancera said buildings fell at 44 locations in the capital alone as high-rises across the city swayed.
Hours after the magnitude 7.1 earthquake, rescue workers were clawing through the wreckage of a primary school that partly collapsed in the city’s south, looking for children. Some relatives said they had received WhatsApp messages from two girls inside.
The federal education department reported late on Tuesday night that 25 bodies had been pulled from the school’s wreckage, all but four of them children. It was not clear whether those deaths were included in the overall toll of 248 reported by the federal civil defence agency.
President Enrique Pena Nieto visited the school earlier in the night. At the time, he said 22 bodies had been found, and that 30 children and eight adults were missing. Rescuers were continuing their search and pausing to listen for voices from the rubble.
Later, Mr Pena Nieto issued a video message urging calm and saying the initial focus of authorities was to find people trapped in fallen buildings.
“The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people,” he said.
The earthquake is the deadliest in Mexico since one in 1985 on the same date killed thousands. It came less than two weeks after another powerful tremor caused 90 deaths in the country’s south.
The civil defence agency yesterday reported that the confirmed death toll was 248, more than half of them in the capital.
The official Twitter feed of agency head Luis Felipe Puente said 117 dead had been counted in Mexico City and 72 in Morelos state, which is just south of the capital. It said 43 were known dead in Puebla state, where the earthquake was centred. Twelve deaths were listed in the state of Mexico – which surrounds Mexico City on three sides – three in Guerrero state and one in Oaxaca.
The federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing emergency funds. Mr Pena Nieto said he had ordered all hospitals to open their doors to the injured.
The federal interior minister, Miguel Chong, said authorities had reports of people possibly still being trapped in collapsed buildings. He said search efforts were slow because of the fragility of rubble.
“It has to be done very carefully,” he said, and “time is against us.”
At one site, onlookers cheered as a woman was pulled from the rubble. Rescuers immediately called for silence so they could listen for others who might be trapped.
Mariana Morales, a 26-yearold nutritionist, was one of many who joined rescue efforts immediately after the tremor.
She wore a paper face mask and her hands were dirty from working with a team clearing rubble from a building that fell before her eyes, about 15 minutes after the earthquake.
A dust-covered Carlos Mendoza, 30, said that he and other volunteers had been able to pull two people alive from the ruins of a collapsed apartment building after three hours of effort. “We saw this and came to help,” he said. “It’s ugly, very ugly.”
The tremor sent people throughout the city fleeing from homes and offices, and many people remained in the streets for hours, fearful of returning to the structures.
The US geological survey said the magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit at 1.14pm and was centred near the Puebla state town of Raboso, about 123 kilometres south-east of Mexico City.
Puebla governor Tony Gali said there were damaged buildings in the city of Cholula, including collapsed church steeples.
In Jojutla, a town in neighbouring Morelos state, the town hall, a church and other buildings tumbled down.
The Instituto Morelos secondary school partly collapsed in Jojutla, but school director Adelina Anzures said the earthquake drill that the school held in the morning was a boon when the real thing hit just two hours later.
“I told them that it was not a game, that we should be prepared,” Ms Anzures said of the drill.
When the shaking began, children and teachers filed out rapidly but without panicking and no one was hurt, she said.
“It fell and everything inside was damaged.”
Earlier in the day, workplaces across Mexico City had held earthquake readiness drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, a magnitude 8 shake that killed thousands of people and devastated large parts of the capital.
In that tragedy, too, ordinary citizens played a crucial role in rescue efforts that overwhelmed officials.
Local media broadcast video of whitecap waves churning the city’s normally placid canals of Xochimilco.
Mexico City’s international airport suspended operations and was checking facilities for damage.
Much of Mexico City is built on a former lake bed, and the soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes centred hundreds of miles away.
The new earthquake appeared to be unrelated to the magnitude 8.1 temor that hit on September 7 off Mexico’s southern coast and was felt strongly in the capital.
US geological survey seismologist Paul Earle said the planet usually has about 15 to 20 earthquakes of this size or larger each year.
The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured ENRIQUE PENA NIETO Mexico president