Tag Archives: Mexico City

Major earthquake hits near Mexico City, dozens dead

People clear rubble after an earthquake hit Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

By Anthony Esposito

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A major earthquake of magnitude 7.1 struck central Mexico on Tuesday, toppling dozens of buildings in the heavily populated capital and killing at least 49 people nearby.

President Enrique Pena said 27 buildings had collapsed in Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities. The first reports of fatalities were from surrounding areas.

In the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, 42 people died, the state’s governor said. Authorities reported other deaths in neighboring Puebla and the State of Mexico.

“People are really scared right now,” said dentist Claudia Meneses who was in her clinic in Mexico City’s Lindavista neighborhood when the earthquake struck mid-afternoon. “We’re going to go to a building that fell to see if we can help.”

Earthquakes of magnitude 7 or above are regarded as major and are capable of causing widespread heavy damage.

Television images showed a multi-story building in the capital with a middle floor collapsed as sirens blared and first responders rushed to the scene. Other video showed the side of a government building shearing off and falling into the street as bystanders screamed.

Rescue workers pulled at least one survivor from a collapsed building in the Condesa neighborhood near the center of Mexico City.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.” The city and its surrounding area are home to about 20 million people.

Damages are seen after an earthquake hit in Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Damages are seen after an earthquake hit in Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

In Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City, there were unconfirmed reports on local radio of people trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

Mexican TV and social media showed cars crushed by debris. Many people fled into the streets, and electricity and phone lines were down in parts of the capital.

“We got out really fast, leaving everything as it was and just left,” said Rosaura Suarez, as she stood with a crowd on the street.

The quake hit only hours after many people participated in earthquake drills around the nation on the anniversary of a devastating quake that killed thousands in Mexico City in 1985.

Many people were also still shaken from another quake on Sept. 7 in southern Mexico that killed at least 98 people.

The epicenter of Tuesday’s quake was located in the central state of Puebla, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

(Reporting by Mexico City newsroom; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)

Strong 7.1 quake hits Mexico, people trapped in collapsed buildings

Damages are seen after an earthquake hit in Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Mexico on Tuesday, collapsing buildings and trapping an unknown number of people.

TV images showed a multi-story building in the capital with a middle floor collapsed as sirens blared from first responders rushing to the scene. Other video showed the side of a government building sheering off and falling into the street as bystanders screamed.

In Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City, there were unconfirmed reports on local radio of people trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

The quake came just over a week after another major quake shook the country. A civil protection official told local TV that an unspecified number of people were trapped inside various buildings that caught fire in Mexico City.

Mexican TV and social media showed cars crushed by debris. Many people fled into the streets, and electricity and phone lines were down in parts of the capital.

“We got out really fast, leaving everything as it was and just left,” said Rosaura Suarez, as she stood with a crowd on the street.

Tuesday’s epicenter was located 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Atencingo in the central state of Puebla at a depth of 32 miles (51 km), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake hit only hours after many people participated in earthquake drills around the nation on the anniversary of the devastating quake that killed thousands in Mexico City in 1985.

Many people were also still shaken from the recent quake on Sept. 7, a powerful 8.1 temblor that killed at least 98 people.

President Enrique Pena was on a flight to Oaxaca, one of the hardest hit areas by that quake, and said via his Twitter account that he was immediately returning to attend to the quake in Mexico City.

Damages are seen after an earthquake hit in Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Claudia Daut

Damages are seen after an earthquake hit in Mexico City, Mexico September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Claudia Daut

(Reporting by Mexico City newsroom; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Quake pitches past into present in scarred Mexico City district

Quake pitches past into present in scarred Mexico City district

By Julia Love

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The powerful earthquake that rocked Mexico City last week had terrifying echoes of a more deadly 1985 shock in one housing project, raising tough questions about how ready one of the world’s largest cities is for a major catastrophe.

At its epicenter, Thursday’s 8.1 magnitude quake was stronger than the disaster three decades ago that killed at least 5,000 people in Mexico City, toppling two tower blocks in the historic central neighborhood of Tlatelolco.

Mexico City has made major advances since then, with regular earthquake simulations, improved building regulations, and seismic alarms designed to sound long enough before the shock to give residents time to flee.

Nearly 100 people are known to have died in the latest quake, none of them in the capital.

Yet experts noted the tremor’s epicenter was further from Mexico City and two times deeper than in 1985, and warned it would be wrong to assume the capital could now rest easy.

Such caution was palpable in Tlatelolco.

Antonio Fonseca, 66, a longtime resident who witnessed the 1985 collapse of the tower blocks in the Nuevo Leon housing complex that killed at least 200 people, said memories of the event sparked panic attacks in the neighborhood when the quake rolled through the city on Thursday.

“I’m quite sure that these buildings are very well reinforced,” said Fonseca, a local history expert. “But there are many people who are still wary.”

When the ground began shaking in September 1985, local workers laughed it off at first, continuing with breakfast. Nobody believed Fonseca when he told them Nuevo Leon had fallen, he recalled.

Later, Fonseca saw a group of children in the neighborhood’s central Plaza de las Tres Culturas who had been waiting for the school bus, their uniforms caked in white dust from the building’s collapse.

This time around, residents feared the worst. Streets filled across the city when the quake hit near midnight. Crying and praying, hundreds descended onto the plaza and some stayed for hours, questioning whether it was safe to return home.

Minerva de la Paz Uribe, a retiree living on the plaza, was unable to evacuate with her father, who turned 104 the next day. She watched from her window as neighbors scrambled to escape.

“People leave running with their dogs. They leave screaming. Are we prepared? No, no, we’re not prepared,” she said, as a group of friends on the plaza murmured in agreement.

Some 30 buildings in Tlatelolco were rebuilt after the 1985 disaster and a dozen were demolished. Mexico’s new skyscrapers include hydraulic shock absorbers and deep foundations.

But such safety features are less prevalent in much of the sprawling periphery, which is filled with cheap cinderblock homes like the buildings that collapsed on Thursday in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas near the epicenter.

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT

Situated at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the capital is particularly vulnerable due to its location on top of an ancient lake bed.

The government’s widely panned response to the 1985 quake caused upheaval in Mexico, which some credited with weakening the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). After 71 years, the PRI was finally voted out in 2000.

Signs of government incompetence, or worse, persist.

Mexican news website Animal Politico on Monday reported that thousands of seismic alarms acquired by the government of Oaxaca five years ago were never distributed, with some appearing for sale on online auction sites.

A spokesman for Oaxaca’s civil protection authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mistrust of government has spurred some to form community groups. Among the most famous are the Tlatelolco Topos, or moles, formed from rescue squads that dug survivors and corpses out of the rubble in 1985, and have since traveled the world offering assistance in quakes and landslides.

But disasters have a habit of catching people off guard.

Georgina Mendez de Schaafsma was returning from taking children to school when the 1985 temblor struck Tlatelolco. To her horror, she realized her six-year-old daughter was home alone.

Racing back, Mendez retrieved the girl. But three other relatives died in the Nuevo Leon collapses.

Now 70, Mendez still lives in the same building, which had a number of floors removed after the 1985 quake. She stayed indoors when the tremors began on Thursday night and believes Mexico City is better equipped today – up to a point.

“In a catastrophe, I think we’re never prepared,” she said. “Nature is stronger.”

(Reporting by Julia Love, Additional reporting by Dave Graham, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Mexico rushes aid to millions after huge quake; death toll at 96

Residents walk next to a house destroyed by the earthquake that struck the southern coast of Mexico late on Thursday, in Ixtaltepec, Mexico, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake that struck Mexico last week has left some 2.5 million people in need of aid and killed 96 others, authorities said on Monday, as officials rushed to get food and water to afflicted communities in the poor south.

Oaxaca state governor Alejandro Murat told local television the death toll in his state had risen to 76. He said preliminary reports showed that at least 12,000 homes were damaged, and warned the number was likely to rise.

Murat said 1 million people in Oaxaca needed food, water, electricity and help rebuilding damaged homes, while in neighboring Chiapas state, which was closest to the epicenter of the tremor, 1.5 million people were affected, according to officials.

“We are united in facing this humanitarian crisis,” Murat said.

The 8.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Chiapas rattled Mexico City and sowed destruction across the narrowest portion of Mexico on the isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Sixteen people have been reported dead in Chiapas state and four in neighboring Tabasco. Many of the fatalities in Oaxaca were in the town of Juchitan, where more than 5,000 homes were destroyed.

The quake, the most powerful earthquake to hit Mexico in over eight decades, was stronger than a 1985 temblor that killed thousands in Mexico City. However, its greater depth and distance kept the capital from being more serious damaged.

President Enrique Pena Nieto on Friday declared three days of national mourning and pledged to rebuild shattered towns and villages.

 

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia in Juchitan and Sheky Espejo in Mexico City; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

 

Mexico City spike in crime, violence sparks fears of cartel warfare

Police vehicles patrol the streets, after suspected gang members were killed on Thursday in a gun battle with Mexican marines in Mexico City, Mexico, July 21, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The sight of vehicles set ablaze by cartels has mostly been confined to lawless stretches of Mexico’s provinces, so the appearance of burning buses in Mexico City this week has stoked fears that the drug gangs’ violence is spreading to the capital.

The so-called narco-blockade on Thursday in the tough Mexico City suburb of Tlahuac occurred after Mexican marines gunned down eight suspected gangsters in broad daylight, a highly unusual incident that underlined a recent spike in violent crime.

“The city’s authorities have lost control of the situation,” said Jose, a veteran Mexico City policeman who spoke on the condition his surname be withheld.

“Now the cartels are getting stronger, they can’t control them any more. That’s why they asked the marines to come in.”

All told, 206 murder investigations were opened in Mexico City between May and June, making it the bloodiest two month-period on record in the capital, official data show.

Mexico City and its urban sprawl form the economic heart of the country, accounting for roughly a quarter of gross domestic product, according to the OECD, and the rise in violence is a major embarrassment for the Mexican government.

The crime spree mirrors a rising tide of violence nationally that has exposed major law and order shortcomings by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, less than a year before the next presidential election.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera, who harbors his own presidential ambitions, has also come under fire for not doing enough to protect the capital, and for saying repeatedly that drug cartels do not operate in the city.

In a news conference on Friday, Mancera said the suspects belonged to a “a big, violent criminal organization whose operations were no longer confined to Tlahuac,” noting they traversed the city in armed convoys.

“From my point of view, they didn’t have the structures and size that we associate with cartels,” he added.

Mexico’s criminal underworld has mutated in recent years, thanks to a prolonged military-led assault that smashed the cartels into hundreds of informal crews with little experience in cross-border trafficking.

As these smaller groups jostle over the kidnapping and extortion rackets, violence has soared. The country’s murder tally this year is on track to post the highest since modern records began in 1997.

Various factors are seen behind the capital’s rise in violence.

Weak economic growth and chronically low wages drive youths in poor neighborhoods into crime. These troubled youths often extort small business owners, eventually shuttering them which makes jobs even harder to come by, according to local policeman Jose.

He also dismissed the idea that criminal gangs were not in the city, saying both La Familia Michoacana and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel operate in the capital.

Francisco Rivas, director of the National Citizen Observatory, a civil group monitoring justice and security in Mexico, said regardless of what constitutes a cartel, the days of the capital being isolated from the drug violence were over.

“What’s happening in Mexico City reflects the national outlook,” he said. “We have a crisis of organized crime.”

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Ana Isabel Martinez; editing by Dave Graham, G Crosse)

Experts scour site of deadly blast at Mexico fireworks market

Police officers walk amongst the wreckage of houses destroyed in an explosion at the San Pablito fireworks market outside the Mexican capital on Tuesday, in Tultepec, Mexico,

By Noe Torres

TULTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) – Teams of forensic investigators pored over the charred remains of fireworks market outside Mexico City on Wednesday after a series of blasts a day earlier killed at least 31 people and injured dozens more in a disaster marked by disbelief and tears.

Videos of the blasts at the San Pablito market showed a spectacular flurry of pyrotechnics exploding high into the sky, like rockets in a war zone, as a massive plume of charcoal-gray smoke billowed out from the site.

It was the third time in just over a decade that explosions struck the popular marketplace in Tultepec, home to the country’s best-known fireworks shopping and located about 20 miles (32 km) north of Mexico City in the adjacent State of Mexico.

Eruviel Avila, the state’s governor, said the explosions injured at least 72 people while another 53 remained missing.

“Everything was destroyed, it was very ugly and many bodies were thrown all over the place, including a lot of children. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said 24-year-old housewife Angelica Avila as tears ran down her face.

Avila spoke outside a nearby hospital as she waited for an update on the health of her brother, a fireworks salesman, who she said was burned and also suffered a heart attack.

The federal attorney general’s office opened an investigation, saying in a statement late on Tuesday that six separate blasts kicked off the destruction.

Director of Tultepec emergency services Isidro Sanchez told local television earlier on Tuesday that a lack of adequate safety measures was the likely cause of the blasts.

The vast majority of the market’s 300 stalls were completely destroyed by the explosions, said state official Jose Manzur, adding that the site was inspected by safety officials just last month and no irregularities were found.

In late 2005, explosions struck the same Tultepec fireworks market just days before independence day celebrations, injuring scores of people.

Another explosion gutted the area again almost a year later.

The market was particularly busy on Tuesday as many Mexicans buy fireworks to celebrate the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

(Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner)

Mexico City Hit By 7.2 Magnitude Earthquake

A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook Mexico City and the surrounding regions Friday.

The quake was so strong that people rushed into the streets out of fear that building would collapse.

Mexican authorities said that walls cracked and fell along with the collapse of some smaller buildings but no major building collapses or deaths.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred along a fault line that was considered dormant by most geologists.  However, Gavin Hayes of the USGS says the plates in the Guerrero Seismic Gap were locked, which allowed a potential build up of devastating energy.

The last quake along that fault was a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1911.

The USGS says the fault line has the potential to cause a quake that is above magnitude 8.4 and could kill more than the 9,500 people in the 1985 magnitude 8.1 Mexico City quake.

Mexican Truck Containing Radioactive Material Stolen

A truck containing dangerous radioactive material was stolen from a gas station near Mexico City on Monday.

Officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency said Mexican officials informed them of the theft in a statement Wednesday.

The truck contained radioactive cobalt-60 from a hospital in Tijuana that was being transported to a waste disposal site. The IAEA said the material was properly shielded for safety when the truck was stolen but that it’s impossible to know if the thieves have breached that shielding.

“Whoever has or finds the equipment is urged not to open or damage it, as in these cases it can cause severe health problems,” the agency said.

Intelligence officials say that in the wrong hands the material could be used to make a “dirty bomb”.

A massive search is underway in six Mexican states and Mexico City. The white Volkswagen truck has been shown on TV and in newspapers with phone numbers for citizens to call if they spot it.