A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit northwestern Mexico, killing two people, rocking buildings as far away as Los Angeles and sending emergency teams scrambling to survey damage yesterday.
Sunday’s earthquake jolted millions of people as far away as Los Angeles, San Diego, California, Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona. Most of the damage and injuries were centered in and around the Mexican border city of Mexicali, where at least two people were reported dead and about 100 injured.
The quake left a scene of destruction in Mexicali, the capital of Baja California state located 60km from the epicenter, with toppled buildings, cracked roads, ruptured water canals, downed telephone polls and power outages. An untold number of homes, offices and hospitals were also damaged.
A man was killed when his home collapsed on top of him, Mexican rescue workers said.
Another man died when he was crushed by a falling wall in Mexicali, Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna said.
With no immediate reports of injuries and only limited damage, residents of California, Arizona and Nevada in the US, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief.
Though the quake was the largest to affect southern California in years, it was not nearly as strong as the massive earthquake seismologists have predicted will inevitably hit the Golden State, possibly killing thousands of people.
The worst may not be over yet, with experts warning another quake could hit in the coming days.
“Each earthquake we have triggers a chance for a bigger earthquake in the next few days,” California Institute of Technology seismologist Lucy Jones told reporters.
Osuna declared a state of emergency in Mexicali, a major metropolitan hub of 900,000 inhabitants. Classes were suspended indefinitely.
“This is a large quake with the potential of causing damage because it is not far from a population center,” said Carlos Valdez, director of the National Seismological Service.
A firefighter at a station just outside Mexicali told the Los Angeles Times that fires caused by the quake destroyed at least six homes after damaging propane tanks and severing electricity lines.
There were no immediate reports of any Taiwanese casualties, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
However, the ministry will keep in close contact with Taiwan’s office in Mexico, said Joseph Kuo (郭永樑), head of MOFA’s Department of Central and South American Affairs, adding that it was a long holiday weekend in Mexico, so many Taiwanese firms there were closed.
MOFA Deputy Spokesman James Chang (章計平) said the ministry had also contacted the nation’s representative offices in Los Angeles on several occasions and so far no Taiwanese in the area were reported injured as a result of the earthquake.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG AND CNA
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