A 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Mexico has killed at least 226 people, including more than 20 children at a collapsed primary school. Rescue teams are working tirelessly to locate survivors trapped under the rubble.
Image: picture-alliance/El Universal/B. Fregoso
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Buildings collapse as powerful earthquake rocks Mexico
Scores of people are dead after Mexico City and its surrounding areas were rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Buildings around the capital have collapsed, leaving many trapped, injured or dead.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Blackwell
Dozens of buildings collapse
At least 27 buildings in Mexico's capital have collapsed in the earthquake, including multi-level residences. Magnitude 7 earthquakes are regarded as major catastrophes and often cause widespread heavy damage.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Blackwell
Call for silence
Crowds erupted in applause when rescue workers pulled a survivor out of one collapsed building. They were immediately silenced, however, as rescuers listened closely to find others trapped in the rubble.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Estrella
Chaotic scenes
People poured onto the streets as high-rise buildings swayed sickeningly in the city of 20 million people. The earthquake happened in the early afternoon, just hours after city authorities had conducted an earthquake drill.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMA Wire/F. Canedo
Death toll unknown
Authorities have released tentative death tolls in the surrounding states, but no official figures were available in the capital. The earthquake caused most of its damage in the center and south of the sprawling city.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Estrella
Familiar images
The disaster stirred memories of a 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in the city. Emergency officials warned people not to smoke in the streets to avoid igniting gas leaking from ruptured pipes.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Estrella
Second earthquake in two weeks
The quake came on the anniversary of the 1985 disaster and less than two weeks after another tremor left 90 dead in the country's south. Seismologists said this quake was not an aftershock of the previous one.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Estrella
Buildings in flames
Fires broke out in many buildings across Mexico City, which is one of the world's largest metropolises. Electricity and phone lines were down in many parts of the city.
Image: Reuters/M. A. Q. Cordero
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The death toll from a devastating earthquake in central Mexico climbed to at least 226 people on Wednesday. Civil protection agency head Luis Felipe Puente wrote on Twitter Wednesday that at least 117 people had been killed in Mexico City, 55 in the state of Morelos, 39 in Puebla, 12 in Mexico State and three in Guerrero.
Rescue efforts are focused on finding people who may still be trapped under collapsed buildings. One of the most frantic efforts is at a primary and secondary school, the Escuela Enrique Rebsamen, where it is believed around 20 children may still be trapped in a classroom. A crowd of desperate parents outside reported that two families had received WhatsApp messages from children inside the rubble. Volunteers have been risking their own safety to crawl inside the collapsed building. Volunteer rescue worker Peter Serrano described how he managed to crawl through some crevices into a classroom to find that everyone there had been killed.
"We saw some chairs and wooden tables. The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults - a woman and a man," he said.
Mexico's Department of Education issued a statement late Tuesday that 25 bodies had so far been recovered from the school. But many parents are still holding out hope that their children will be found.
Earthquake follows recent tremor
Tuesday's earthquake happened nearly two weeks after a devastating tremor off the country's southwestern coast killed at least 90 people. It also fell on the anniversary of a 1985 quake in Mexico City that caused the death of about 10,000 people.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has called together his national crisis council, said he had declared a state of disaster. Emergency personnel were deployed across affected areas to aid rescue efforts.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and hit 5 miles (8 kilometers) southeast of Atencingo in the central state of Puebla. Mexico's seismological agency recorded 11 aftershocks.
Mexican news outlets and residents have shared dramatic images of buildings collapsing and on fire.
Fires engulf buildings
Thousands of people were sent fleeing into the streets as buildings swayed violently in the Mexico City metropolitan area, home to more than 20 million people. Mexican TV broadcast images of collapsed buildings and other scenes of severe damage as reports emerged of various fires in different parts of the city.
Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told the Televisa news network at least 44 buildings had collapsed in Mexico City and that dozens of people had so far been rescued by citizens and emergency workers.
Buildings that collapsed in the capital included apartment blocks, a school, a factory and a supermarket. Countless volunteers and rescue workers dug through rubble searching for survivors.
"My wife is there. I haven't been able to communicate with her. She is not answering, and now they are telling us we have to turn off our cell phones because there is a gas leak," Juan Jesus Garcia told Reuters news agency, choking back tears.
A nation pulls together
In the wake of the chaos and devastation, a massive volunteer effort has seen Mexicans from all walks of life pull together to help each other. Doctors and dentists have formed human chains with street sweepers and construction workers to hand down buckets of debris and lumps of concrete. Mexico's infamous motorcycle clubs have also joined in, using motorcades to keep lanes open for emergency vehicles to get through. When a six-story building collapsed, Cristina and Viktoria Lopez Torres helped with passing bottled water to those inside.
"I think it's human nature that drives everyone to come and help others," Cristina Lopez said. "We are young. We didn't live through'85. But we know that it's important to come out into the streets to help," said her sister Victoria.
aw, es, cl/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
When Mother Nature gets angry, really angry
On average, some 10,000 people die in earthquakes around the world annually. The temblors have often provoked tsunamis and wider devastation. DW takes a look at some of the most powerful earthquakes of the last century.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Barret
Most powerful earthquake ever recorded
The most powerful earthquake ever recorded hit Chile's coast in May 1960. The quake, 9.5 on the Richter scale, lasted almost 10 minutes, resulting in massive infrastructure damage. Around 5,700 people were killed in Chile while the resulting tsunami left 130 people dead in Japan and another 61 in Hawaii. This picture shows the remains of Corral harbor in Chile's Valdivia province.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Good Friday earthquake
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, remains the strongest earthquake to hit the US to date. It occured on Good Friday, March 27, across south-central Alaska. The quake and the following tsunamis caused about 139 deaths. The picture above is from a small fishing village on Kodiak Island and it shows debris from houses and boats.
Image: Getty Images/Central Press
Most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan
A team member from Japan's Rescue Dog Association and his dog search for victims. Northeastern Japan was struck by a devastating earthquake, measuring 9.1 on the moment magnitude scale, followed by a massive tsunami. The natural disasters claimed almost 18,500 lives, and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, in what is considered the world's worst nuclear power disaster since Chernobyl.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Y. Chiba
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The undersea megathrust earthquake, magnitude 9.1, triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing some 280,000 people in 14 different countries and inundating coastal communities with waves up to a 100 feet. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
Image: Getty Images/P.M. Bonafede/U.S. Navy
Kamchatka earthquake
A megathrust earthquake occurred off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia on November 4, 1952. The 9.0 magnitude quake caused a tsunami leading to widespread destruction and loss of life around the Kamchatka peninsula and the Kuril Islands. More than 2,300 people were killed.
2010 Chile earthquake
An 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of central Chile in February 2010. It triggered a tsunami which devastated several coastal towns in south-central Chile and damaged the port at Talcahuano. The quake and the following tsunami resulted in the deaths of around 450 people, while damage to the local fisheries' business was estimated at 66.7 million US dollars.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Bernetti
China 1976 quake
An abandoned railway coach in Tangshan, China after an earthquake devastated the industrial town on July 28, 1976. The quake, measured at 7.4, struck near the industrial city in northeastern Hebei province. The official death toll is given as 242,000 but is believed to be significantly higher. Some estimates put the deathtoll at around 500,000.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone/Hulton Archive
1920 Haiyuan earthquake
The earthquake, measured at 8.3, occurred in the Haiyuan county of the northern province of Ningxia and caused aftershocks for almost three years. As a result, up to 235,000 people died immediately. Many more, who were living in camps due to the continuing aftershocks, perished later due to severe winter conditions.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
2010 Haiti earthquake
A man walks amid the rubble of a destroyed building in Port-au-Prince following the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, 2010. With a magnitude of 7.0, the quake destroyed thousands of buildings and left at least 200,000 people dead.
