A magnitude 6.5 earthquake on Friday rattled Mexico’s capital and a tourist hotspot on the Pacific coast, killing at least two people and causing moderate damage in a small town near the epicenter.
The US Geological Survey said the quake struck shortly before 8am near Acapulco, a major port and beach resort.
It was felt about 400km away to the north in Mexico City, where alarms sent people rushing into the street for safety, disrupting a holiday weekend.
Photo: AFP
A 60-year-old man died after falling while evacuating his second-floor apartment in the capital, local authorities said.
Twelve others were injured, city Mayor Clara Brugada wrote on social media, but there were no reports of major damage in the country’s largest city.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was forced to evacuate the presidential palace during her regular morning press conference.
Mexico’s National Seismological Service said the earthquake’s epicenter was 14km southwest of the town of San Marcos in the state of Guerrero.
Sheinbaum said there were no immediate reports of major damage, but in San Marcos, the effects were visible.
A woman in her 50s “lost her life when her house collapsed on top of her,” Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado said.
San Marcos Mayor Misael Lorenzo Castillo said about 50 houses were destroyed and “all the houses have cracks.”
Mexico is situated between five tectonic plates and as such is one of the world’s most-seismically active countries.
Karen Gomez, a 47-year-old office worker living on the 13th floor of an apartment building in Mexico City, said she was roused from her sleep by a street siren.
“I woke up in terror. My cellphone alert said it was a powerful earthquake.”
Kindergarten director Norma Ortega, 57, who lives in a 10th-floor apartment, said she felt her building shake.
In Acapulco, Ricardo, a tourist from the central Mexican state of Morelos, fled his hotel shirtless after sirens sounded.
The center of Mexico City is built on the muddy subsoil of what was once the bed of a lake, making it particularly vulnerable to earthquakes.
The quakes most strongly felt usually originate off Guerrero state on the Pacific coast.
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