At least 248 people were killed by a powerful earthquake that struck central Mexico on September 19, 2017.
The magnitude 7.1 quake toppled dozens of buildings, broke gas mains and sparked fires less than two weeks after another powerful quake killed at least 98 people in southern Mexico. It also hit just hours after emergency drills marked the anniversary of a temblor that killed thousands in 1985.
Millions of people fled into the streets, where they weathered the violent shaking and desperately sought word about the welfare of family and friends.
Emergency personnel in Mexico City, a metropolitan region of about 20 million people, searched frantically with picks and shovels for survivors beneath the rubble of what the sprawling city's mayor calculated to be as many as 44 collapsed buildings, including at least one primary school.
Mexican President Enrique Peũa Nieto said late on Tuesday that more than 20 children and two adults had been found dead at the school, Colegio Enrique Rebsamen, in the neighbourhood of Coapa. Another 30 children and 12 adults were missing, he said.
Emergency personnel and equipment were being deployed across affected areas so that “throughout the night we can continue aiding the population and eventually find people beneath the rubble,” Mr. Peũa Nieto said in a video posted on Facebook earlier on Tuesday evening.
Rescue workers and soldiers toiled around collapsed buildings where heat-sensing equipment suggested survivors could still be trapped. Bystanders joined in where they could, clearing debris with their bare hands or whatever tools they could find nearby.
Text: Agencies
In this photo provided by Francisco Caballero Gout, shot through a window of the iconic Torre Latina, dust rises over down town Mexico City during a 7.1 earthquake on September 19, 2017. Throughout the capital, rescuer workers and residents dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings seeking survivors.
People fill Paseo de la Reforma after evacuating from their offices after the earthquake in Mexico City. Adding poignancy and a touch of the surreal, Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 quake struck on the 32nd anniversary of the earlier temblor that killed thousands and came just two hours after earthquake drills were held across Mexico to mark the date.
Rescue workers arrive at a damaged building in Mexico City. The quake appeared to be unrelated to the magnitude 8.1 temblor that hit Sept. 7 off Mexico’s southern coast and also was felt strongly in the capital.
Smoke rises out of a building in Mexico City after the earthquake. U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle noted the epicenters of the two quakes were 650 kilometres apart and said most aftershocks are within100 kilometres.
A man walks out of the door frame of a building that collapsed after the earthquake, in the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City. Mexico’s federal government has declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing up emergency funds.
People help an injured man during the rescue operation, in Mexico City.
Women react after they were rescued in the wake of an earthquake that hit Mexico City. Much of Mexico City is built on former lakebed, and the soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes centered hundreds of miles away.
A damaged building is seen after the earthquake in Mexico City.
Search and rescue operations are carried out at the site of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Condesa, Mexico City, Mexico, in this September 19, 2017 image from social media. Throughout the day, rescuers pulled dust-covered people, some barely conscious, some seriously injured, from about three dozen collapsed buildings.
A car stands crushed by rubble after a 7.1 earthquake, in Jojutla, Morelos state. The earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 200 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust.
People remove debris outside a collapsed building, in Mexico City. People used shopping carts from a nearby supermarket to carry away rubble in a Mexico City neighborhood where three apartment buildings collapsed on the same stretch of street.
A rescue worker ask everybody to be quiet as they are searching for people under the rubble of a collapsed building in Mexico City.
Volunteers gather water, medicine, and blankets donated by neighbourhood residents in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City.
Volunteers bring pieces of wood to help prop up sections of the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school, as rescue workers search for children trapped inside, in Mexico City. One of the most desperate rescue efforts was at a primary and secondary school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-storey building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete floor slabs.
A military helicopter flies over a collapsed building as rescue personnel look for people among the rubble, in Mexico City.
Rescue workers look at fellow workers searching for people under the rubble of a collapsed building, in Mexico City.
A damaged car is seen outside a building in Mexico City. As night began to fall huge flood lights lit up the recovery sites, but workers and volunteers begged for headlamps.
Rescuers and people work at a collapsed building in Mexico City. The rescue effort continued long through the night, the work punctuated by cries of “quiet” so searchers could listen for any faint calls for help.