Buildings and houses in Mexico earthquake debris [PHOTOS]

Buildings and houses in Mexico earthquake debris [PHOTOS]

President Enrique Peña Nieto traveled on Friday afternoon Juchitán, where he met with residents in the middle of the rubble and who promised support and rebuild the area. (Photo: AFP)

At least 61 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Mexico, the "largest recorded" in the last hundred years in the country

"There are 61 people who sadly died," of which 45 in Oaxaca state, 12 in Chiapas and four in Tabasco, said President Enrique Peña Nieto from the city of Juchitán, the hardest hit by the quake, with 36 deaths until now.

Authorities have warned of the possibility of a replica of more than 7 degrees in the 24 hours after the earthquake, which hastens the rescue tasks in affected areas.

It is also feared that the balance of victims will continue to increase.

Palace in ruins

In Juchitán, a town of about 100,000 inhabitants with strong presence of the Zapotec ethnic group located in the south of Oaxaca, the earthquake reduced to rubble the Municipal Palace.

At dawn, a lonely villager ventured into the ruins of what was a majestic colonial construction to rescue a Mexican flag and wave it, an image captured on video and reproduced virally in social networks.

Many houses, schools and the market were split in half, others exposed their entrails with broken partitions, bent metal beams and broken glass.

 

"God wants me to come alive!" A Zapotec woman cried as she waited expectantly to rescue a municipal policeman who remained under the palace debris until the afternoon.

"We are doing everything we can to get the partner out, two of them were trapped and we have already rescued one alive," an agent in his dust-covered uniform told AFP, while his colleagues were looking for a shovel in their hands. mountains of rubble.

"I have no memory of such a terrible earthquake, if not Mexico City in 1985. Now the whole city is a catastrophe, a lot of damage, a lot of deaths," Vidal Vera, a 29-year-old police officer, told AFP. the rescue work

Expectant Megaurbe

Mexico City, with more than 20 million inhabitants and that does not forget the nightmare of the earthquake of 19 of September of 1985 of 8.1 degrees that left in ruins wide zones with more than 10,000 dead, waited expectantly the occurrence of a retort.

The megaurbe, which on Fridays is usually lively and chaotic, was half-empty in large sectors. Public and some private schools suspended classes to check for structural damage to their facilities, while some companies called only the essential workers.

Authorities and experts clarified that this time the distance to the epicenter was 700 km, while in 1985 was about 400 km and hence its minor impact in the center of the country.

 

"This earthquake had intensity levels of a third or a fifth of what was observed in 1985," Leonardo Ramírez, head of the UNAM Institute's Seismic Instrumentation Unit, told a news conference.

The earthquake occurred at 23:49 local Thursday near the town of Tonalá (Chiapas), about 100 km from the coast and at a depth of 19 km.

Mexico is also threatened by Hurricane Katia, category 2, which is advancing Friday through the Gulf of Mexico to the state of Veracruz, in a terrible week in which two other cyclones, Irma and Jose, left a wake of dead and serious property damage.

 

Pope Francisco raised a prayer from Colombia for the victims of the earthquake.

"I want to express my spiritual closeness to all those who suffer the consequences of the earthquake that struck Mexico last night," the Pope said at the end of a Mass in Villavicencio, Colombia.