Around 20 school kids had been found dead and more than 30 children are missing
A powerful earthquake shook Mexico City and surrounding states killed at least 200 people and left many trapped under collapsed buildings.
According to the official of the capital city Mexico, more than 200 people, including over 20 school children were killed after a deadly earthquake struck Mexico City.
Dozens of buildings tumbled into mounds of rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico City.
The rescue workers in the capital, backed up by thousands of volunteers using buckets, shopping trolleys and wheelbarrows, battled through the night to help the trapped survivors under the rubble.
The US Geological Survey’s report says, the epicentre of the 7.1-magnitude earthquake was 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometres) east-northeast of San Juan Raboso and 34.1 miles (55 km) south-southwest of the city of Puebla, in Puebla State.
“It was truly a very strong and very harsh earthquake,” President Enrique Peña Nieto said after rushing back from Oaxaca, where he had been planning to tour areas affected by the quake on September 7.
President Peña Nieto said more than 20 children and two adults had been found dead at the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City’s southern Coapa district. He said another 30 children and eight adults were missing.
Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said buildings fell at 44 places in the capital alone as high-rises across the city swayed sickeningly.The mayor said 50 to 60 people were rescued alive by emergency workers and others.
An earlier death toll of nearly 250 was lowered to 216 by the country’s national co-ordinator for civil protection:
- Morelos state: 71 dead
- Puebla state: 43 dead
- Mexico City: 86 dead
- Mexico state: 12 dead
- Guerrero: 3 dead
- Oaxaca: 1
In the history of Mexican earthquakes, Tuesday’s was coincidentally the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 Michoacan earthquake, which resulted in thousands of deaths.
The 1985 earthquake was the more typical great earthquake that breaks the boundary between the plates, and caused great devastation in Mexico City despite being more than 100 miles distant.