People remove debris of a building that collapsed after an earth quake rattled Mexico City on Tuesday. Alfredco Estrella / AFP - Getty Images
Rescuers frantically searched through the rubble
of collapsed schools, homes and apartment buildings early Wednesday
after Mexico's deadliest earthquake since 1985 killed at least 217
people.
The quake struck at about 2:15 p.m. ET on
Tuesday and had a magnitude of 7.1, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Its
epicenter was in the state of Puebla, about 80 miles southeast of
Mexico City.
It came less than two weeks after a magnitude-8.1 quake hit the country and killed nearly 100.
Mexico 7.1 Quake: 'Horrific Images' Emerge From Aftermath1:53
Mexico's National Civil Defense agency put the
death toll at 248 early Wednesday, but later reduced the number to 217.
The reasons for this discrepancy were not immediately clear.
Dozens of buildings tumbled into mounds of
rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico
City. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said buildings fell at 44 places in the
capital alone as high-rises across the city swayed sickeningly.
Damaged hospitals evacuated patients.
The federal Education Department reported late
Tuesday night that 25 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of a
school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-story building
collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete floor slabs. It was not
clear whether the deaths were included in the overall toll reported by
the federal civil defense agency.
At Least 20 Children Killed in Mexico City School Collapse1:03
In the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma, rescue
workers cheered after finding a woman alive under rubble, according to
the AP. They then quieted down to listen for calls from other survivors.
Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense said 3,400 soldiers were deployed.
Robert W. Bouman was in Mexico City visiting
family when the quake struck — the second he had experienced in Mexico
in less than two weeks."It's an incredibly terrifying and scary
experience," Bouman, 31, told NBC News. "This time, the quake was much
more violent. We had trouble standing and walking. It was impossible to
maintain your balance."
Videos on social media showed tables and light
fixtures shaking in restaurants and street signs and traffic lights
quivering outside.
Mancera, the mayor, said 50 to 60 people were rescued alive by emergency workers and others.
President Enrique Peña Nieto was on a flight to Oaxaca when the quake struck and said in a tweet that he was immediately returning to Mexico City to assess the situation.
He later issued a video message urging calm.
"The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still
trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people," Peña Nieto
added.
NBC News
President Donald Trump, who has clashed with
Peña Nieto over his repeated calls for a border wall between their
countries, sent his support in a tweet.
"God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you," he wrote. Photos: Powerful Earthquake Shakes Mexico City
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offered "the thoughts and
prayers of Texans" to Mexico and said the state would "continue to
offer any support to aid Mexico in their time of need."
A spokesman for António Guterres, the
secretary-general of the United Nations, said that he extended his
condolences and that "the United Nations stands ready to assist."
Earthquake expert Lucy Jones, who spent 33 years
at the USGS, told NBC News that the earthquake was "quite an unusual
occasion" because of where it occurred.
First responders ask for silence as they search for survivors in Mexico City on Tuesday. Gustavo Martinez Contreras / AP
"It's a place that doesn't usually have
earthquakes, but it can. It's sort of like having a magnitude-7 in
Nevada — they aren't as common as in California, but they definitely
have happened," Jones said.
Earlier on Tuesday, buildings across Mexico City
held earthquake drills to mark the anniversary of the massive Sept. 19,
1985, earthquake that killed at least 9,500 people, the AP said.
Valerie Perez, 23, a student from Venezuela, ran
from her fourth-floor apartment in Mexico City just in time to see the
building in front of it collapse.
"A drill at 11 a.m. and an earthquake at 1 p.m.," she said. "This is the most powerful thing I have ever seen in my life."
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