MEXICO CITY — A powerful earthquake struck Mexico on Tuesday afternoon, toppling buildings, killing children in a school that collapsed, rattling the capital and sending people flooding into the streets for the second time in just two weeks.
Early Wednesday, the director of Mexico’s civil protection agency, Luis Felipe Puente, said on Twitter that 216 people had been killed, revising an earlier toll of 248. Ninety-four people were confirmed dead in Mexico City, officials said.
Rescuers were frantically digging out people trapped under rubble, including the children buried beneath their school, volunteers at the scene said Tuesday night. At least 21 students were believed to have been killed in the collapse of the school.
The earthquake hit shortly after 1 p.m. about 100 miles from Mexico City. It registered a preliminary magnitude of 7.1, causing heavy and prolonged shaking in the capital.
About 40 buildings and other structures in Mexico City collapsed, including at least one other school, officials said, crushing cars and trapping people inside. Emergency workers and ordinary citizens raced to the site of downed office and apartment buildings, lifting rubble with their hands to free anyone stuck underneath.
Tuesday’s earthquake struck on the 32nd anniversary of another major disaster: the 1985 quake that killed as many as 10,000 people in Mexico.
It also came less than two weeks after the most powerful earthquake in Mexico in a century, an 8.1 magnitude quake that killed at least 90 people, destroyed thousands of homes and was felt by tens of millions of people.
Residents in Mexico City, having just experienced shaking from that quake, said the tremors on Tuesday were far worse.
Leave a Reply