Mexico quake rescuers struggle to free survivors as death toll soars

The magnitude 7.1 quake killed at least 230 people, 32 years to the day after a devastating 1985 quake.

Rescue team members work on the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Mexico City.
Reuters

Rescue team members work on the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Mexico City.

Rescuers dug frantically Wednesday for survivors of a 7.1- magnitude earthquake that killed more than 200 people in Mexico, as the nation watched anxiously for signs of life at a collapsed school in the capital.

The death toll stood at 230, the country's emergency chief confirmed.

President Enrique Pena Nieto warned the figure is likely to rise.

Firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers worked to remove rubble, hoping to find survivors beneath the remains of collapsed buildings, in scenes repeated across a swath of central states.

The most agonising search was at the school in the south of Mexico City where 21 children -- aged between seven and 13 -- and four adults were crushed to death, while dozens remain missing, President Enrique Pena Nieto said. The public school is for children aged three to 14.

TRT World's Nafisa Latic reports.

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Hundreds of neighbours and emergency workers spent the night pulling rubble from the ruins of the school with their bare hands under the glare of floodlights. Three survivors were found at around midnight as volunteer rescue teams known as "moles" crawled deep under the rubble.

On Wednesday morning, the workers said a teacher and two students had sent text messages from within the rubble. Parents clung to hope that their children were alive.

"They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter," said 32-year-old Adriana D'Fargo, her eyes red, who had been waiting for hours for news of her seven-year-old.

Overnight, volunteers with bullhorns shouted the names of rescued kids so that tense family members could be reunited with them.

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Scenes of chaos

The earthquake toppled dozens of buildings, tore gas mains and sparked fires across the city and other towns in central Mexico. Falling rubble and billboards crushed cars.

Even wealthier parts of the capital, including the Condesa and Roma neighbourhoods, were badly damaged as older buildings buckled. Because bedrock is uneven in a city built on a drained lake bed, some districts weather quakes better than others.

Parts of colonial-era churches crumbled in the adjacent state of Puebla, where the US Geological Survey (USGS) put the quake's epicenter some 158 km (100 miles) southwest of the capital.

Reuters

Rescuers work at the site of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico, September 20, 2017.

Volcano erupts

Around the same time that the earth shook, Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano, visible from the capital on a clear day, had a small eruption. 

On its slopes, a church in Atzitzihuacan collapsed during Mass, killing 15 people, Puebla Governor Jose Antonio Gali said.

In Rome, Pope Francis said he was praying for Mexico, a majority Catholic country. "In this moment of pain, I want to express my closeness and prayers to all the beloved Mexican people," he said.

US President Donald Trump said in a tweet: "God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you."

Residents of Mexico City, home to some 20 million people, slept in the streets while authorities and volunteers distributed food and water at tented collection centres.

Other volunteers, soldiers and firefighters formed human chains and dug with hammers and picks to find dust-covered survivors and bodies in the remains of apartment buildings, schools and a factory.

With each layer of rubble that was removed, workers pled for silence to onlookers and volunteers, desperate to hear the sound of any survivors below.

Reuters

Residents wait outside their homes after an earthquake in Mexico City.

Some volunteers in Mexico City expressed frustration at the disorganisation among military and civilian emergency services, which competed over who would lead the rescue efforts.

"There is so much bureaucracy and so many obstacles in the way of getting these kids out alive," said Alfredo Perez, 52, a freelance civil engineer, who arrived at the Enrique Rebsamen school in the early hours of the morning to help.

Night searches

The middle-class neighborhood of Del Valle was hit hard, with several buildings toppling over on one street. Reserve rescue workers arrived late at night and were still pulling survivors out early on Wednesday.

With power out in much of the city overnight, the work was carried out with flashlights and generators.

Moises Amador Mejia, a 44-year-old employee of the civil protection agency, worked late into the night looking for people trapped in a collapsed building in the bohemian Condesa neighborhood.

"The idea is to stay here until we find who is inside. Day and night."

Reuters

Rescuers and people work at a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Mexico City, Mexico.

In Obrera, central Mexico City, people applauded when rescuers managed to retrieve four people alive, with cheers of "Si se puede," or "Yes we can," ringing out.

Volunteers arrived throughout the night, following calls from the civil protection agency, the Red Cross and firefighters.

The quake killed 94 people in the capital by Wednesday morning, according to Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera. In Morelos State, just to the south, 71 people died, with hundreds of homes destroyed. In Puebla at least 43 died.

Another 17 people were reported killed in the states of Mexico, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The governor of Morelos state declared five days of mourning.

Nearly five million homes, businesses and other facilities lost electricity, according to national power company Comision Federal de Electricidad, including 40 percent of homes in Mexico City. Power was later re-established to 90 percent of the areas affected.

Still, much business and industry in affected areas remained closed. Carmaker Volkswagen AG temporarily shut its sprawling Puebla factory, its biggest outside of Germany, due to structural damages from the quake. 

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