Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
clear sky
weather
OMAN
25°C / 25°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Rescuers in grim search for Mexico quake survivors

1114884
1114884
minus
plus

Mexico City: Mexico waited anxiously on Thursday for signs of life at a collapsed school in the capital, as rescuers continued clawing through rubble for survivors of a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 233 people.


Firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers worked frantically to remove debris in scenes repeated across a swath of central states in Mexico’s second killer earthquake this month.


The most agonising search was at a school in the south of Mexico City where 21 children — aged between seven and 13 — and five adults were crushed to death. Many children were still missing.


Rescue workers were desperately trying to reach several children believed to be alive beneath the wreckage in the early hours of Thursday — more than 40 hours after the quake struck. Using a thermal scanner, they had located signs of life in several locations.


“We know that there is a child alive inside (the destroyed school), what we do not know is how to reach her... without risking a collapse and putting rescuers in danger,” rescue coordinator Jose Luis Vergara told Televisa about a young girl whose fate is being closely followed by the country.


A civilian volunteer — a slight man — was able to squeeze into a narrow channel through the rubble to reach the girl and pass her water and oxygen.


“I’m very tired,” she said, according to the military. So far, 11 children and at least one teacher have been rescued from the rubble of the Enrique Rebsamen elementary and middle school.


Emergency workers reported that some victims had been rescued thanks to WhatsApp messages they sent to relatives while trapped under the debris. Rescue teams were helped by thousands of ordinary civilians who dug through the rubble alongside them. Other Mexicans took to the streets with food and water for victims and emergency workers.


President Enrique Pena Nieto toured the hardest-hit areas and declared three days of national mourning. “The priority remains saving lives,” he said in a national address, insisting there was still hope of pulling survivors from the rubble.


More than 50 people have been rescued from collapsed buildings in the capital, he said.


Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told Televisa TV that 39 buildings in the capital had fallen. Searches were under way in all but five where rescuers had determined that nobody remained trapped, he said.


Taiwan confirmed one of its citizens was known to have died, while three others were still trapped. One Taiwanese woman was earlier pulled to safety.


Many residents spent a second night in parks and plazas, in tents or makeshift shelters, unable or unwilling to return to their homes as authorities inspected some 600 buildings whose walls swayed and cracked when the quake struck.


US President Donald Trump called Pena Nieto and offered assistance and search-and-rescue teams which are now being deployed, the White House said.


Chile and El Salvador pledged aid and Honduras sent 36 rescue workers. An Israeli team of 71 soldiers including engineers and search and rescue specialists was on the ground.


The earthquake hit on the anniversary of a huge quake in 1985 that killed more than 10,000 people, the disaster-prone country’s deadliest ever.


Tuesday’s struck just two hours after Mexico held a national earthquake drill, as it does every September 19 to remember the 1985 disaster.


Mexico sits atop five tectonic plates, making it particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. — AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon