Hopes of finding more survivors after Mexico City’s devastating quake dwindled to virtually nothing yesterday, five days after the magnitude 7.1 tremor rocked the heart of the mega-city, toppling dozens of buildings and killing more than 300 people.
Yet authorities were still listening to anguished families who insisted that painstaking rescue operations continue at a handful of sites.
Foreign teams from Japan, the US and elsewhere were working with dogs and high-tech gear to try to detect signs of life under the rubble.
Photo: Reuters
In the first three days, 69 people were pulled out alive, but since Friday only bodies have been found.
A series of smaller earthquakes in the south of Mexico on Saturday — including a magnitude 6.1 one — stoked panic in a population traumatized by Tuesday’s disaster.
Authorities said two people died in the southern state of Oaxaca, where tectonic upheaval was centered. A bridge buckled and collapsed, as did several other previously damaged structures.
In Mexico City, two women, one aged in her 80s, the other 52, died of heart attacks as they tried to evacuate their homes.
Others prayed the rocking earth was not going to swell into a new catastrophe.
The tremors — possibly aftershocks from a massive magnitude 8.2 quake that hit southern Mexico two weeks ago — forced rescue workers in the capital to pause their efforts for a couple of hours.
Experts say that, usually, there is little to no chance of finding quake survivors after three days have passed.
Yet Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told Televisa television that about “30 people may yet be able to be found in this search and rescue operation.”
Paola Solorio, a 35-year-old who had three relatives trapped at one flattened building, said: “We’ve been told they have detected areas with life. They’ve sent in dogs and the dogs have indicated life.”
Nevertheless, the smell of decaying bodies wafting out from collapsed buildings presaged grief for some relatives and rescue workers are wearing face masks to shield themselves from the odor.
Some of the foreign crews sent to Mexico on hasty rescue mission refused to call it quits.
“We’re here to save lives. You have to have faith and believe [the people inside] are in a place with access to air and managed to survive,” said Karin Kvitca, a 29-year-old with an Israeli rescue crew.
So far the foreign specialists have found only bodies. The latest death toll stands at 307, of which 169 were in Mexico City.
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