Rescue ops go on in Mexico quake ruins
WEARY RESCUE workers resumed digging through piles of bricks and cement in earthquake-ravaged Mexico on Friday as the desperate search for survivors stretched into its fourth day.
Families of the missing clung to hopes of a miracle after several people were pulled alive from the rubble in Mexico City on Thursday.
“They keep telling us there is life in there, but we keep on waiting,” said Cristal Estrada, whose accountant brother, Martin, 31, was among the missing.
“There is life, yes, but we do not know if is it my brother.
“They do not have much time in there,” she added.
The death toll from the 7.1-magnitude earthquake rose to 295 people Friday. More than half of the fatalities — 155 — were in the hard-hit capital city.
A total of 60 people have been plucked from the wreckage since the quake struck Tuesday.
The rescue effort was suspended in parts of Mexico City overnight amid a drenching rain that threatened to destabilize the mountains of debris.
Several families of the missing waited for news outside a collapsed seven-story building in the Roma Norte neighborhood.
A list of 46 names of missing people was attached to a nearby lamppost where civil engineer Jose Gutierrez updated the relatives on the status of the rescue effort.
Gutierrez straddled both worlds — he, too, had a relative believed to be trapped under the piles of concrete slabs.
“My family is in there. I want them to get out,” Gutierrez said, his voice breaking with emotion. “So ... we go onward.”
First responders and volunteers from a myriad of countries — including the U.S., Japan, Panama and Israel — have flooded Mexico to aid the search operations.
The rescuers’ tireless work was rewarded Thursday when two people were pulled alive from the rubble of a decimated textile factory in the Colonia Obrera neighborhood.
Cheers broke out among the roughly 1,000 volunteers when the survivors emerged from the pile.
The celebration capped what had been a mostly fruitless search. A total of 21 people had been confirmed dead at the site, according to NBC News.
As bulldozers and backhoes arrived in some parts of the city, officials insisted that the heavy machinery was being used only on wrecked buildings where no one had been detected, or piles of rubble that threatened to collapse on other structures.
“It is false that we are demolishing structures where there could be survivors,” said National Civil Defense Chief Luis Felipe Puente. “The rescue operations will continue, and they won’t stop.”
The death toll included 73 in Morelos, 45 in Puebla, 13 in Mexico state, six in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
At least 25 people — including 21 students believed to be 7 or 8 years old — were found dead at the site of the crumbled private Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City.
The devastated three-story building captured worldwide attention when it was revealed that a schoolgirl was trapped alive in the rubble.
But the account turned out to be false — dashing the hopes of the rescuers as well as the untold numbers of people rooting for the girl around the world.
“It was a confusion,” said Alfred Padilla, a volunteer rescuer at the school. “The important thing is there are signs of life, and we are working on that.”