A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck southern Mexico’s Pacific coast on Tuesday, killing at least six people and seriously injuring others in isolated villages, while causing damage to buildings hundreds of miles away in Mexico City.
The fatalities were near the quake’s center in Oaxaca, a mountainous state known for its coffee, mescal and Spanish colonial architecture.
A Reuters witness in the state’s Pacific coast resort town of La Crucecita, which Mexican authorities said was the epicenter of the earthquake, saw anxious residents standing outside their homes hours after the tremor as they feared deadly aftershocks.
Houses were scarred by wide cracks across walls and residents sought to clear debris from the streets. About 200 houses in the area were damaged, including 30 that were badly impacted, a local official said.
“We lost everything in one moment to nature,” said Vicente Romero, an owner of a stationery store whose house suffered structural damage. “This is our life’s work.”
Rockfalls blocked winding mountain roads between the state capital of Oaxaca city and the coast. Rescue workers reported three people seriously injured in the remote hill village of Santa Catarina Xanaguia, one state official said.
Rescue workers battled for hours to reach the settlement, near the epicenter, where the quake brought down homes and parts of the mountainside, the official said.
A clinic and old churches near the epicenter were severely damaged, images on social media showed.
The dead included a worker from state oil company Pemex in Oaxaca, who fell from a height at the country’s biggest oil refinery. The refinery was briefly closed after a fire.
Miguel Candelaria, 30, was working at his computer in his family home in the Oaxaca town of Juchitan when the ground trembled. He ran outside with relatives, but they stopped in the middle of the street as the pavement buckled and rocked.
“We couldn’t walk […] the street was like chewing gum,” said Candelaria, 30.
Quakes of magnitudes over 7 are major earthquakes capable of widespread, heavy damage.
MEXICO CITY SHAKES:
In Mexico City, buildings shook strongly and people ran into the streets when an early warning seismic alarm sounded.
Two people were injured and more than 30 buildings in the capital suffered damage, officials said, including buildings still scarred from a 2017 earthquake that killed 355 people in the capital and the surrounding states.
Water from rooftop pools or tanks cascaded down residential buildings in the city, and construction workers on the 56th story of a new residential tower clung to each other as it swayed, images on social media showed.
The US Geological Survey said the epicenter of Tuesday’s quake was located 69 km (43 miles) northeast of the town of Pochutla. It was very shallow, only 26 km (16 miles) below the earth’s surface, which would have amplified the shaking.
Near to the epicenter, Magdalena Castellanos Fermin was in the village of Santiago Astata when the “really intense” quake struck, sending large rocks tumbling down the hillside and alarming residents, she told Reuters by telephone.
Eunice Pineda, a 26-year-old teacher in Juchitan, said the quake “was two minutes of torture,” as she feared her house would collapse.
But residents in one of Mexico’s most seismically active regions have learned to “live one day at a time,” Pineda added.
“We learn to appreciate, to treasure every moment,” she said.
The epicenter was near Crucecita, in the southeastern state of Oaxaca, but the shock wave was felt as far away as Mexico City, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) distant, where it sent frightened residents rushing into the streets.
The US Geological Survey reported that the quake struck with a magnitude of 7.4, at a depth of 23 kilometers. After initially publishing a reading of 7.1, the Mexican Seismological Service revised its figure to 7.5.
The US Pacific Tsunami warning center said hazardous waves as high as three meters could strike anywhere within 1,000 kilometers of the quake's epicenter, affecting the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central and South America.
The highest waves, of one to three meters, are expected along Mexico's southern coast near where the quake hit hardest, the center said.
Waves of up to one meter could strike the coast of Ecuador, and smaller waves under a half-meter could be seen in Central American countries as well as Hawaii and Peru.
"At the moment we have no preliminary reports of any damage. Several institutions are continuing to evaluate their priority infrastructure," David Leon, the national coordinator of Mexico's Civil Protection force, told Milenio TV station.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat wrote on Twitter that the state was activating safety protocols "to monitor the streets and keep the population protected."
Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum also activated response protocols, although she said there had been "no major incidents" reported.
The earthquake was felt in several parts of the capital of 8.8 million people which in 2017 was hit by a 7.1 magnitude quake that left 360 people dead throughout the country.
That same year, 96 people died after an 8.1 magnitude quake struck the south of the country, with Oaxaca the worst affected state.
The quake has hit at a time when Mexico is already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.
It has suffered more than 22,500 COVID-19 deaths - the second most in Latin America - and 185,000 cases.
