Mexico earthquake: Live updates
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/08/americas/mexico-earthquake-live-updates/index.html
What you need to know
What’s happened: An 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Mexico late Thursday night local time. It was felt more than 600 miles from the epicenter and there have been multiple aftershocks since. A tsunami has been confirmed in Mexico, with one wave coming in at 3 feet (1 meter).
Who is affected: A least 16 people have been killed, Luis Felipe Puente, the country’s national coordinator for emergency management, told Foro TV. A state of emergency was declared in all 122 municipalities of Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state. The US Geological Survey issued a red alert following the quake.
What's next: Tsunami waves could hit off the coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Ecuador.
Quake sent people scattering into streets
The earthquake sent people scattering into the streets in Mexico City, hundreds of miles from the epicenter. Photos show residents gathering outside clubs and hotels in the center of the capital.
Oaxaca region one of hardest hit
Oaxaca Civil Protection Director Amado Bohorquez told CNN Espanol (CNNE) that Istmo de Tehuantepec, a region of Oaxaca, was hit hardest in the quake.
“The worst situation is in the Istmo de Tehuantepec, where one hotel collapsed and five people are dead and four missing. A hospital was badly damaged, and two houses collapsed," Bohorquez told CNNE.
Update: Death toll revised to 16
The 8.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Mexico has now claimed at least 16 lives, Luis Felipe Puente, the country’s national coordinator for emergency management, told Foro TV. The number was revised after another death was confirmed in Chiapas.
Breaking: Death toll rises to 15
At least 15 people have been killed in the 8.1-magnitude earthquake that struck off of Mexico’s southern coast, according to the state-run Notimex news agency, citing Luis Felipe Puente, the country’s national coordinator for emergency management.
Ten of the deaths were reported in the state of Oaxaca, three in Chiapas, and two in Tabasco.
September 8, 2017 6:00am CDT
People feared trapped inside hotel
Rescuers sifting through the rubble in the town of Matias Romero, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, fear that four people may still be trapped inside a hotel that collapsed there.
Of the nine people believed to be staying at the Amer Hotel, five are alive and accounted for, Oaxaca Civil Protection Director Amado Bohorquez told CNN.
“There were many buildings, many houses, that collapsed with the earthquake” in Matias Romero, Bohorquez said, adding that a hospital there was also badly damaged.
Photos show destruction in Guatemala
Guatemala's Red Cross tweeted photographs showing destruction in the towns of Tacana, San Marcos and San Pedro Sacatepéquez, close to the Mexican border, following the quake.
Guatemalan officials still assessing damages
Eddy Sanches, director of the National Seismology Institute of Guatemala, told CNN en Español that officials in the country do not yet have a clear picture of the damages wrought by a massive earthquake that struck off the coast of Mexico on Friday morning.
"As the quake happened overnight, we still don’t have complete information on the damages, but the destruction is concentrated in the northern part of Guatemala," Sanches told CNNEE, adding that areas of the country bordering Mexico were hardest hit, particularly San Marco.
“Areas in the San Marco department are left without electricity, as many transformers caught fire. People who felt the tremor on the Pacific coast immediately feared for a tsunami, but the alert luckily was called off," he added
Earthquake shakes buildings and monuments in Mexico
Videos are circulating on social media that were recorded in the midst of the earthquake. One showed the famous Angel of Independence monument swaying in Mexico City while others showed buildings shaking across the country.
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Mexico earthquake: mass evacuations after strongest tremor in a century
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/08/mexico-earthquake-warning-tsunami
The strongest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century has left at least 26 people dead, sparked mass evacuations and prompted warnings of tsunamis across the region.
The magnitude 8.2 quake struck 100 miles (165km) west of the state of Chiapas just before midnight on Thursday local time.
The governor of the southern state of Oaxaca said that 20 people were killed in the region. A further four people were confirmed dead in Chiapas, and two in Tabasco state. The Tabasco governor, Arturo Núñez, said the two dead were children. One died after a wall collapsed and the other, a baby, died in a children’s hospital that lost electricity.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, tweeted: “Sadly, there are reports that people have died. My deepest condolences to their families.”
The president said he had asked for updates from the National Disaster Prevention Centre, and the authorities were monitoring the situation and would meet immediately to coordinate their response to the quake.
He said at least 1 million people had been left without electricity after the quake, but power had since been restored to 800,000 of them. He urged people to be vigilant and to check gas supplies as well as walls and columns.
In a series of tweets, Peña Nieto said schools would be closed for the day in Mexico City, the state of Mexico, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Guerrero, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala. He said the suspension of classes would allow experts to determine the damage to schools.
In a call to the TV network Televisa, he sought to allay fears about huge waves rushing towards the coastline. “The tsunami risk on the Chiapas coast does not represent a major risk. It’s not very big, it’s not a major worry,” he said.
The Pacific tsunami warning centre said waves as high as three metres could strike the coast.
The governor of Chiapas, Manuel Velasco, said the roofs of homes and a shopping centre had collapsed in San Cristobal. “Hospitals have lost energy,” he said. “Homes, schools and hospitals have been affected.”
Rodrigo Soberanes, who lives near San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, told the Associated Press his house had “moved like chewing gum” during the quake.
Reports suggested that a hotel in the south of the country was among the buildings that suffered severe damage, and rescuers were searching for trapped people.
In Mexico City, windows were broken at the airport and power went out in several neighbourhoods.
People in the capital, one of the world’s largest cities, ran out into the streets in their pyjamas after the quake struck, a Reuters witness said. Helicopters hovered overhead a few minutes later, apparently looking for damage to buildings.
Liliana Villa, 35, who had fled her apartment, said: “It felt horrible, and I thought ‘this is going to fall’.”
Luis Carlos Briceño, a 31-year-old architect visiting Mexico City, 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. I nearly fell over.”
A video quickly went viral showing the Ángel de la Independencia monument swaying as it was bathed in green light.
The tremor appears to have been stronger than the magnitude 8.0 earthquake in 1985 that levelled large portions of the capital, killing 5,000 people and destroying 10,000 houses.
Much of Mexico City was built on the soft soil of a former lakebed, leaving it vulnerable to earthquakes. Building codes have been tightened since 1985, and earthquake drills for apartment dwellers and officer workers have become common in recent years.
Public officials were quick to provide updates on damage and give instructions, unlike in 1985 when the country’s politicians went missing in action and residents, many left homeless, fended for themselves and teamed up to pull people out of piles of rubble.
The tsunami warning centre recorded initial waves a metre over tide level off the city of Salina Cruz. It predicted waves of between 30 cm and a metre for the Cook Islands, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guatemala and Kiribati.
Waves of below 30cm were forecast for countries as far away as Australia, Japan and Vietnam.
Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales, said he had reports of an unconfirmed death near the border with Mexico, in San Marcos state. “We have reports of some damage and the death of one person, even though we still don’t have details,” he said.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist in California who works with the US Geological Survey, said such as quake was to be expected. “Off the west coast of Mexico is what’s called the subduction zone: the Pacific plate is moving under the Mexican peninsula,” she said.
The Mexican seismological authority said the quake was 19km deep and triggered a series of magnitude 6 aftershocks.
“Chiapas is historically a very seismic state due to the interaction of five tectonic plates”, it said in a report on the earthquake. The state has suffered three tremors above magnitude 7 since 1970, including one on 7 November 2012 that measured 7.3.