A powerful earthquake shook central Mexico on Tuesday, collapsing buildings in plumes of dust and killing at least 217 people. Thousands fled into the streets in panic, and many stayed to help rescue those trapped.
The head of Mexico’s national Civil Defence Agency has lowered the number of confirmed dead in the earthquake to 217.
Luis Felipe Puente says on his Twitter account that at least 86 people died in Mexico City, 71 in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 12 in the State of Mexico, four in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
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Dozens of buildings tumbled into mounds of rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico City and nearby states. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said buildings fell at 44 places in the capital alone as high-rises across the city swayed sickeningly.
The quake is the deadliest in Mexico since the 1985 temblor on the same date that killed thousands. It came less than two weeks after a quake caused 90 deaths in the country’s south.
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The count does not include one death reported by officials in Oaxaca state.
The federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing up emergency funds. President Enrique Pena Nieto said he had ordered all hospitals to open their doors to the injured.
Mexico City mayor Mancera said 50 to 60 people were rescued alive by citizens and emergency workers in the capital. Authorities said at least 70 people in the capital were hospitalised.
Federal interior minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said authorities had reports of people possibly still being trapped in collapsed buildings. Search efforts were slow because of the fragility of rubble.
“It has to be done very carefully,” he said. And “time is against us.”
The quake 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.
Alarms blared and traffic stopped around the Angel of Independence monument on the iconic Reforma Avenue.
Electricity and cellphone service wereinterrupted in many areas and traffic was snarled as signal lights went dark.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.1 magnitude quake hit at 1-14 p.m. and was centered near the Puebla state town of Raboso, about 123 kim southeast of Mexico City.
Puebla Governor Tony Gali tweeted there were damaged buildings in the city of Cholula, including collapsed church steeples.
In Jojutla, a town in Morelos state, the town hall, a church and other buildings tumbled down, and 12 people were reported killed.
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,” Anzures said of the drill. When the shaking began, children and teachers filed out rapidly and no one was hurt, she said. “It fell and everything inside was damaged.”
Earlier in the day, workplaces across Mexico City held earthquake readiness drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, a magnitude 8.0 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.
Market stall vendor Edith Lopez, 25, said she was in a taxi a few blocks away when the quake struck on Tuesday. She said she saw glass bursting out of the windows of some buildings. She was anxiously trying to locate her children, whom she had left in the care of her disabled mother.
Local media broadcast video of whitecap waves churning the city’s normally placid canals of Xochimilco as boats bobbed up and down.
Mexico City’s international airport suspended operations and was checking facilities for damage.
Much of Mexico City is built on former lakebed, and the soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes centered hundreds of miles away.
The new 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.
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle noted the epicenters of the two quakes were 650 km apart and said most aftershocks were within 100 km.
There have been 19 earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 or larger within 250 km of Tuesday’s quake over the past century, Mr. Earle said.
The Earth usually has about 15 to 20 earthquakes this size or larger each year, he noted.
Initial calculations showed that more than 30 million people would have felt moderate shaking from Tuesday’s quake.