At least 32 people were killed after a massive magnitude 8.1 earthquake, one of the biggest recorded in Mexico, struck off the nation’s southern coast late on Thursday, causing cracks in buildings and triggering a small tsunami, authorities said.
The quake was apparently stronger than a devastating 1985 temblor that flattened swathes of Mexico City and killed thousands, but this time damage to the capital was limited.
However, a number of buildings suffered severe damage in parts of southern Mexico.
Photo: AFP
Some of the worst initial reports came from the town of Juchitan in Oaxaca State, where sections of the town hall, a hotel, a bar and other buildings were reduced to rubble.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat said 23 deaths were registered in Oaxaca, 17 of them in Juchitan.
A spokesman for emergency services said seven people were also confirmed dead in the neighboring state of Chiapas.
Photo: AP
Earlier, Tabasco Governor Arturo Nunez said two children had died in his state.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 8.1 quake had its epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 87km southwest of the town of Pijijiapan in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas at a depth of 69km.
Rescue workers labored through the night in badly affected areas to check for people trapped in collapsed buildings.
Windows were shattered at Mexico City airport and the power went out in several districts, affecting more than 1 million people.
The cornice of a hotel came down in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, a witness said.
The tremor was felt as far away as neighboring Guatemala.
The quake triggered waves as high as 0.7m in Mexico, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
Mexican television showed images of the sea retreating about 50m as the authorities evacuated some coastal areas.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said the tsunami risk on the Chiapas coast was not major.
“We are alert,” he told local television.
More aftershocks were likely, the president said, advising people to check their homes and offices for structural damage and gas leaks.
The US Geological Survey reported multiple aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.3 to 5.7.
There was no tsunami threat for American Samoa and Hawaii, according to the US Tsunami Warning System.
The national disaster agency of the Philippines put the nation’s eastern seaboard on alert, but no evacuation was ordered.
People in Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, ran out into the streets in pajamas as alarms sounded after the quake struck just before midnight, a witness said.
“I had never been anywhere where the earth moved so much. At first I laughed, but when the lights went out I didn’t know what to do,” said Luis Carlos Briceno, an architect, 31, who was visiting Mexico City. “I nearly fell over.”
In one central neighborhood, dozens of people stood outside after the quake, some wrapped in blankets against the cool night air. Children were crying.
Liliana Villa, 35, who was in her apartment when the quake struck, fled to the street in her nightclothes.
“It felt horrible and I thought: ‘This [building] is going to fall,’” she said.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS