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Friday 8 September 2017

Seventeen People From One Town Are Killed In Biggest Mexican Earthquake For a century as Death Toll Rises To 32

Last night's earthquake was the strongest to hit Mexico City since a devastating quake ravaged the capital in 1985 (pictured)

Up to 17 people from one town have been killed in the biggest Mexican earthquake for a century as the death toll from the disaster climbed to 32 today.
The earthquake was felt across Mexico, toppling houses, shaking buildings in the country's capital and leaving a million without power amid reports tremors were detected as a far away as Austin, Texas - more than 1,300 miles from the epicentre.

Terrified residents in Mexico City ran out into the streets after the quake struck, witnesses said. Tremors were the strongest in a hundred years, according to President Enrique Pena Nieto - greater even than a devastating earthquake in 1985 that hit the capital flattening swathes of the city and killing thousands.



The quake struck at 11.49pm last night, 76 miles southwest of the town of Pijijiapan, at a depth of 43 mile.
A number of buildings were left in ruins in parts of southern Mexico. 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. 
Alejandro Murat, the state governor, said 23 deaths were registered in Oaxaca, 17 of them in Juchitan.

Authorities initially declared a tsunami alert stretching all the way south to Ecuador, but lifted it several hours later. Coastal Puerto Madero was earlier evacuated amid fears of a wave of up to 12ft.

Authorities initially declared a tsunami alert stretching all the way south to Ecuador, but lifted it several hours later. The only tsunami detected so far, however had a largest wave measured at 3.3ft, experts said.
The death toll has already risen to at least 32 people, including two children in Tabasco state and 17 in the southern city of Juchitan.

Tabasco Gov. Arturo Nunez said that one of the children died when a wall collapsed, and the other was a baby who died in a children's hospital that lost electricity, cutting off the supply to the infant's ventilator.
Three deaths were in Chiapas state, in San Cristobal de las Casas, with two crushed when buildings collapsed on them.

The quake hit offshore in the Pacific, the US Geological Survey said, putting the magnitude at 8.1.


But Mexico's seismologic service gave a magnitude of 8.4, which if confirmed would be the most powerful ever recorded in this quake-prone country.
Mexico's president Enrique Pena Nieto confirmed that major damage has been caused and that 1 million initially had been without power following the quake, but that electricity had been restored to 800,000 of them.

He said that there have been 62 aftershocks and it's possible one as strong as 7.2 could hit.
Some of the worst initial reports came from Juchitan in Oaxaca state, where sections of the town hall, a hotel, a bar and other buildings were reduced to rubble.
Rescue workers laboured through the night in badly affected areas to check for people trapped in collapsed buildings.

Windows also shattered at Mexico City airport and power went out in several neighborhoods of the capital, affecting more than 1 million people. The cornice of a hotel came down in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, a witness said.
Terrified residents fled into the streets amid chaotic scenes in the wake of the huge tremor. 

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