Mexicans coalesce, search quake ruins

Survivor hunt still on at fallen school

Rescue workers search for people trapped inside a collapsed building Wednesday in the Del Valle area of Mexico City.
Rescue workers search for people trapped inside a collapsed building Wednesday in the Del Valle area of Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY -- Rescue workers and residents in Mexico's capital searched frantically Wednesday for survivors of a powerful earthquake that turned high-rise buildings into piles of rubble and caused the collapse of a school attended by hundreds of children.

The 7.1-magnitude quake that struck Tuesday afternoon has killed at least 245 people and injured at least 1,000 across central Mexico. There were fears that the death toll would rise. The quake is Mexico's deadliest since 1985.

The rescue effort included people from all walks of life in Mexico City, where social classes seldom mix. Doctors, dentists and lawyers stood alongside construction workers and street sweepers, handing buckets of debris or chunks of concrete hand-to-hand down the line.

Even Mexico City's normally raucous motorcycle clubs swung into action, using motorcades to open lanes for emergency vehicles on avenues crammed with cars largely immobilized by street closures and malfunctioning stoplights.

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Photos by The Associated Press

Power was being restored in some Mexico City neighborhoods that had been left in darkness overnight, and officials reported that the sprawling transit system was running at near-normal capacity. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said there were 38 collapsed buildings in the capital, down from the 44 he had announced previously.

Amid the recovery efforts, attention was riveted on the private elementary school in the southern part of the capital, where rescuers worked late into the night to reach a trapped girl.

Helmeted workers spotted the girl buried in the debris early Wednesday and shouted to her to move her hand if she could hear. She did, and a rescue dog was sent inside to confirm that she was alive. One rescuer told local media that he had talked to the girl, who said her name was Frida.

Hours later, rescuers were still laboring to free her as images of the rescue effort were broadcast on TV screens nationwide. Workers in neon vests and helmets used ropes, pry bars and other tools, frequently calling on the anxious parents and others gathered around to be silent while they listened for any other voices from beneath the school.

At one point, the workers lowered a sensitive microphone into the rubble to scan for any noise or movement. A rescuer said he thought they had located someone, but it wasn't clear who.

"It would appear they are continuing to find children," said Carlos Licona, a sledgehammer-wielding volunteer. Asked if that made him optimistic, he said, "I hope so."

By late Wednesday night, workers had not been able to get to the girl, though workers found four corpses in the rubble, volunteer rescue worker Hector Mendez said. Mendez said cameras lowered into the rubble suggested that there might be four people still inside, but it wasn't clear whether anyone besides the girl was alive.

A wing of the three-story building had collapsed into a pancake of concrete slabs. Journalists saw rescuers pull at least two small bodies from the rubble, covered in sheets.

Rescuers used wooden beams to shore up the fallen concrete slabs so they wouldn't collapse further and crush whatever air spaces remained.

At dozens of collapsed buildings, firefighters, police officers, soldiers and civilians wore themselves out hammering, shoveling, pushing and pulling debris aside to try to reach the living and the dead.

By midafternoon Wednesday, 52 people had been rescued from collapsed buildings since the quake, Mexico City's Social Development Department said, adding in a tweet: "We won't stop." Among them were 11 people rescued at the Enrique Rebsamen school.

As Mexico City residents pulled together in solidarity, Parque Mexico in the badly affected Condesa neighborhood became a campsite for people without shelter as well as a dropoff point for blankets, food and medicine.

Tuesday's temblor came nearly two weeks after an even larger quake took place off the Pacific Coast and shook the south of the country, killing almost 100 people. Scientists said the same large-scale tectonic mechanism caused both events: The larger North American Plate is forcing the edge of the Cocos Plate to sink. The collision generated both quakes.

Mexico is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. The country is in a region where a number of tectonic plates butt up against one another, with huge amounts of energy waiting to be unleashed.

Mexico City is partially built on old lake sediment, which is much softer than rock. The seismic waves can be amplified when traveling through the sediment, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Geological Survey's model for estimating earthquake damage predicted 100 to 1,000 fatalities, and economic losses of between $100 million and $1 billion for a temblor of this scale and proximity to population centers.

The quake shook Mexico City so hard that the murky, stagnant waters of the city's ancient Xochimilco canals turned into churning pools of waves. Videos posted to social media showed tourists in flat-bottomed tour boats struggling to stay in their seats and hold on to their beers.

President Enrique Pena Nieto declared three days of national mourning even as authorities continued to rescue the trapped and treat the wounded. "Every minute counts to save lives," Pena Nieto tweeted.

In the town of Jojutla, dozens of buildings collapsed, including the town hall. One building was rocked off its foundations and part of it went into a river.

Pena Nieto visited Jojutla and said brigades would be going door-to-door to make sure homes are safe.

At a wake in Jojutla on Wednesday for Daniel Novoa, a toddler killed when his home collapsed, family members bent over a white coffin surrounded by a crucifix and images of Mexico's patron, the Virgin of Guadalupe. Alongside was a larger, open coffin for the child's aunt, Marta Cruz.

In Atzala in Puebla state, villagers mourned 11 family members who died in a church when it crumbled during a baptism for a 2-year-old girl. People at the wake said the only ones to survive were the baby's father, the priest and the priest's assistant.

Information for this article was contributed by Joshua Partlow, Gabriela Martinez, Paul Imison, Paul Schemm, William Branigin, Nick Miroff and Ben Guarino of The Washington Post; by Christopher Sherman, Peter Orsi and Mark Stevenson of The Associated Press; and by Kate Linthicum, Andrea Castillo, Alexandra Zavis and Ruben Vives of the Los Angeles Times.

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AP/EDUARDO VERDUGO

A resident on Wednesday crosses a pile of rubble caused by Tuesday’s 7.1 earthquake, in Jojutla, Morelos state, Mexico.

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AP/PABLO SPENCER

The Santiago Apostol church was heavily damaged after the 7.1 earthquake in the town of Atzala on Wednesday in Puebla state, Mexico.

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AP/MARCO UGARTE

Rescue workers on Wednesday carry a rescue dog as they search the rubble for survivors of the Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City that collapsed after an earthquake Tuesday.

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A map showing the earthquake in Mexico.

A Section on 09/21/2017

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