Over 200 people were killed across central Mexico and several others were trapped beneath the debris of collapsed buildings
Big News Network.com Wednesday 20th September, 2017
MEXICO CITY, Mexico – Over 200 people were killed across central Mexico, and several others were trapped beneath the debris of collapsed buildings after a tragic 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the country.
The quake brought back horrid memories of a similar tragedy that occurred on the same day 32 years back – the 8 magnitude quake in 1985, that killed up to 10,000 people and left 30,000 others injured.
Mexico City, one of the world’s most densely populated cities saw at least 44 buildings collapsed on Tuesday night after the quake struck the earthquake-prone at 1.14 pm.
While several were killed instantly after being buried in collapsed buildings, many others were trapped.
The city’s survivors struggled through the night and into the early hours of the morning, looking for those trapped beneath the immense piles of pancaked rubble, with cries of people often arising from the rubble, punctuating the silence after the devastation.
Power across 40 percent of the city of 20 million people was out after the quake and rescue and medical services were stretched to their limit overnight.
Volunteers, medics and Marines worked side by side to clear away the chunks of concrete, forming lines in the city to pass along containers filled with rubble and dump them into waiting trucks.
According to the federal Education Department, a collapsed school in the southern neighborhood of Villacoapa saw rescuers pulling out 25 bodies from the wreckage — all but four of them children and more are believed to be under the wreckage.
Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera said that 44 buildings had collapsed or partially collapsed in Mexico City alone.
According to the U. S. Geological Survey, the quake struck 76 miles southeast of the capital.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, Luis Felipe Puente, the head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, put the toll at 217, revising it down from earlier estimates.
On Tuesday night, President Enrique Peña Nieto urged calm in a video message, saying “the priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people.”
Nieto added that 40 percent of the capital and 60 percent of the neighboring Morelos state, was without power.
Two weeks back, southern part of the county was hit by a large quake that took place off the Pacific coast an shook the county, killing nearly 100 people.
Nieto had been travelling to the southern state of Oaxaca to inspect the damage from the earlier earthquake when the latest one occurred.
He immediately went back to the capital to convene a national emergency council.
According to scientists, the same large-scale tectonic mechanism caused both events.
Last week scientists explained that the larger North American Plate is forcing the edge of the Cocos Plate to sink.
This collision generated both quakes.
