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Mexicans Dig Through Quake Rubble Overnight as Death Toll Passes 200 Mexicans Dig Through Quake Rubble as Death Toll Passes 200
(about 7 hours later)
The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Mexico on Tuesday jumped to 217, government officials said Wednesday, as searchers worked desperately to find survivors in the ruins of collapsed structures. MEXICO CITY — Mexicans scrambled Wednesday to dig out survivors still trapped in dozens of collapsed buildings a day after a powerful earthquake rattled the capital and killed at least 225 people, including 30 schoolchildren.
The new death toll was announced by Luis Felipe Puente, the country’s civil protection coordinator. He said that more than half the dead were found in Mexico City and nearby Morelos State. Thousands of government and rescue workers were mobilized, plunging into the shattered shells of residences and offices across the city as legions of residents helped clear debris.
The Tuesday afternoon quake toppled dozens of buildings and led to the deaths of 21 children in a school that collapsed in Mexico City. The devastating temblor sent people fleeing into the streets and came just two weeks after another earthquake centered off Mexico’s southern coast rattled the capital. The harried activity at disaster sites stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the city, where an eerie quiet prevailed, with schools closed, businesses largely shuttered and the normally clogged rush-hour streets virtually empty.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, said in a statement Tuesday night that emergency workers were being sent to affected areas so that “throughout the night we can continue aiding the population and eventually find people beneath the rubble.” But outside the crumpled buildings, the urgency was palpable as rescue workers clawed at rubble to remove it piece by piece and volunteers passed buckets of debris in long lines. A sense of impotence accompanied the anguish of relatives who stood along the periphery, praying that their loved ones would emerge alive.
“The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people,” he said. “My brother is still in there,” said Cintia Escamilla, 34, as she sat in front of a collapsed office building in the central Roma neighborhood, where others had also gathered to wait for news. “Nobody has told us anything yet.”
The earthquake happened on the 32nd anniversary of a devastating 1985 quake that killed as many as 10,000 people and flattened 400 buildings in Mexico City. That quake led to a tougher new construction code in the capital. Civil protection officials at the scene said that at least 25 people had been rescued from the destroyed building and five bodies had been recovered. But they estimated that 25 more people were still inside.
In addition to the widespread destruction from Tuesday’s quake, the country was also grappling with power failures affecting millions of people. Mr. Peña Nieto said the authorities were trying to restore electricity to 40 percent of residents in Mexico City and 60 percent in Morelos. “I have been waiting since yesterday to hear of my aunt and two employees,” said Jonathan Durán, 38, who worked in the building. “To hear anything, whatever it is, because the wait is killing me.”
In addition to the large number of bodies discovered in Mexico City and Morelos, people were also killed in the states of Guerrero, Mexico, Oaxaca and Puebla. All told, Mexico City officials counted 39 buildings entirely destroyed, and the city’s entire staff of emergency workers — about 50,000 people — was on duty along with other city workers who were supporting them, he said.
Mexico City’s mayor, Miguel Ángel Mancera, said that about 40 buildings and structures collapsed at a different locations in the capital, with many high rises swaying after the quake. The quake, which struck around 1 p.m. and was centered about 100 miles from the capital, triggered at least 11 aftershocks, further rattling residents of the capital and surrounding areas. “In all the rest of the buildings, absolutely all of them, we are following a search and rescue protocol,” Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera of Mexico City said. “We are starting from the assumption that we can find people who are alive. The rescue will continue like this, practically by hand, and we won’t use heavy machinery until we are 100 percent sure.”
At the scene of the collapsed school, Colegio Enrique Rebsamen, in the southern part of the capital, the mood was one of anguish, as hundreds of volunteers clamored to unearth children they hoped to find alive. Dozens of workers carting megaphones called out contradictory instructions, while others yelled for resources like batteries, flashlights and diesel fuel. The city government reported Wednesday that more than 50 people had been rescued from buildings across the city.
The epicenters of Tuesday’s earthquake and a larger one on Sept. 7 were more than 400 miles apart, but they both occurred in a region where one of the earth’s crustal plates, the Cocos, is sliding beneath another, the North American. By midmorning the death toll had risen to 225, according to Luis Felipe Puente, the federal director of civil protection. The toll was highest in Mexico City, with 94 dead. The state of Morelos, to the south, counted 71 dead. In Puebla State to the east, 43 people died, including eight in the small town of Atzala, where a church collapsed.
Paul Earle, a seismologist with the United States Geological Survey, said it was too early to say whether there was any connection between the two quakes. Although the first was much stronger, the one on Tuesday was much closer to Mexico City, causing more damage in the capital. The 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday afternoon, 32 years to the day after the city’s last great earthquake, in 1985. That quake killed as many as 10,000 people and was a political watershed for the country, as citizens took over the rescue efforts after the government was quickly overwhelmed.
The event proved the power of civil action in the face of a sclerotic authoritarian government and forced changes to building codes that are believed to have prevented many structures from collapse this time.
The memory of that day seems to have been woven into the DNA of Mexicans, even those who did not live through that tragedy.
At one site, Santiago Borden, 10, was straining to help, carrying a heavy jug of water over his shoulder. Eventually he gave up and passed the burden to his father.
“You’re a kid so you can’t expect to do everything,” his father, Abraham Borden, a lawyer and local politician, said to comfort him.
“I want to show solidarity,” Santiago said.
His father replied: “Of course you do. You’re Mexican, after all.”
The work has been nonstop since the earthquake struck. Overnight, whirring generators powered floodlights to illuminate the disaster scenes. And almost always, accompanying the rescue workers were volunteers clearing debris and distributing water, surgical masks and mustard-colored work gloves.
The scene at a collapsed building on Laredo Street took a grim turn shortly after dawn, as two bodies were unearthed from the wreckage. Still, work continued.
“We will continue to work to try and rescue everybody who lives in the building,” said Karen Piña, a doctor in charge of distributing medicine for the area.
Five people had been rescued, but there was still no word of Gabriela Jaén Pimienta, 43. Her uncle, Miguel Ángel Pimienta, had fainted with exhaustion as he waited for news on Wednesday morning.
His face covered by a surgical mask against the dust raised by the debris, he wept as he acknowledged the grim truth behind the wait.
“With every hour that passes, there is less possibility,” he said.
The work was taking its toll on rescue workers, pushing many to the breaking point. As dawn broke over two collapsed residential buildings in the middle-class neighborhood of Del Valle, rescue workers paused to rest as they waited for replacements. They believed 40 people were still trapped inside.
“There’s a breaking point, and we’re of no help like this,” said one government rescue worker with tears in his eyes. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
“I’ve been doing this 20 years, but it’s difficult to find people who almost made it out but didn’t,” he added. “There was a mother and daughter in a door frame and they were so close.”
But even where the daily routine returned, as dog walkers emerged in the early light and cafes opened to people scanning the news and messages on their phones, the unfolding tragedy, sometimes just blocks away, was evident.
Ambulance sirens interrupted the silence, and police trucks rumbled by. Volunteers carrying shovels headed to the rescue sites ready to take over from those who had been working all night.
Social media ricocheted with messages: photos of missing people, appeals for aid.
“Poor neighborhoods in Xochimilco and Iztapalapa without much help,” wrote Ricardo Becerra, an economist, on Twitter, referring to areas in the city’s south and east. “Come with picks and shovels.”
Over and over, variations on the list of supplies were repeated. Hammer drills, work gloves, helmets, electrolytes, IV fluid, adrenaline, insulin.
And through it all, there were notes of hope: “Found,” read one message on Twitter. “Leonardo Farías from the Enrique Rebsámen school.”
But the anguish was never far away. Leonardo, pictured in happier time wearing his knapsack and waving, was in the hospital. “He is in delicate condition,” the message said.