A powerful earthquake jolted central Mexico on Tuesday, killing more than 130 people, cracking building facades and scattering rubble on streets in the capital on the anniversary of a devastating 1985 quake.
MEXICO CITY -- A powerful earthquake jolted central Mexico on Tuesday, killing more than 130 people, cracking building facades and scattering rubble on streets in the capital on the anniversary of a devastating 1985 quake.
The nationwide death toll rose to 139 on Tuesday evening, according to Mexico's head of Civil Defense, and the Mexican federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City which helps free up emergency funds.
Luis Felipe Puente said 64 people died in the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, though local officials reported only 54. In addition, 36 people died in Mexico City, 29 in Puebla state, nine in the State of Mexico and one in Guerrero.
The count did not include one death that officials in the southern state of Oaxaca reported earlier as quake-related.
Hours after the quake, rescue workers were still clawing through the wreckage of a primary school that partly collapsed in the city's south looking for any children who might be trapped. Some relatives said they had received Whatsapp message from two girls inside, but the claim could not be confirmed.
Smoke rises out of a building after an earthquake shook Mexico City, Mexico, on Tue., Sept. 19, 2017.
GETTY
The earthquake is the deadliest in Mexico since the 1985 quake that killed thousands. It came less than two weeks after another powerful quake left 90 dead in the country's south.
Scores of buildings collapsed into mounds of rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico City and nearby states. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said buildings collapsed at 44 places in the capital alone.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was centered near the Puebla state town of Raboso, about 76 miles southeast of Mexico City.
Mancera said 50 to 60 people were rescued alive by citizens and emergency workers in the capital. Authorities said at least 70 people in the capital had been hospitalized for injuries.
The federal interior minister, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, said authorities had reports of people possibly still being trapped in collapsed buildings. He said search efforts were slow because of the fragility of rubble.
"It has to be done very carefully," he said. And "time is against us."
This map shows where a deadly 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico on Tue., Sept. 19, 2017.
CBS NEWS
At one site, reporters saw onlookers cheer as a woman was pulled from the rubble. Rescuers immediately called for silence so that they could listen for others who might be trapped.
Puebla Gov. Tony Galil said there were damaged buildings in the city of Cholula, including collapsed church steeples.
Earlier in the day, workplaces across the city held readiness drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, a magnitude 8.0 shake, which killed thousands of people and devastated large parts of Mexico City.
Thousands of Mexico City residents fled office buildings and hugged to calm each other along the central Reforma Avenue as alarms blared, and traffic stopped around the Angel of Independence monument.
Many people remained in the streets for hours, fearful of returning to the structures. Electricity and cellphone service was interrupted in many areas and traffic was snarled as signal lights went dark.
When the quake hit, freelance reporter Manuel Rueda was walking outside a bank in the city's financial district when buildings began to shake. "People here are are used to encountering these types of situations, but this time, I definitely sensed more fear from people," he said on CBSN.
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