Mexico's government is distributing food to survivors of an earthquake that destroyed a large part of the city of Juchitan and left at least 90 people dead in the region. Nearly 800 aftershocks have been recorded.
Image: picture-alliance/Zuma Press/Xinhua/D. de la Paz
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Officials in Oaxaca and Chiapas states said thousands of houses and hundreds of schools had been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake with water supplies disrupted to thousands of homes.
The picturesque city was the hardest-hit in the nation, with 5,000 homes destroyed and many more left without running water or electricity. In all, 71 of the deaths were in the state of Oaxaca, where Juchitan is located.
Funerals were accompanied by the sound of snare drums, horns and saxophones playing serenades for the dead as pallbearers carefully maneuvered caskets around the rubble in Juchitan's graveyard.
Saxophones, trumpets and snare drums accompanied the funeral processionsImage: picture-alliance/abaca/M. Velasquez
The distraught relatives of 3-year-old Maximo Zuniga cried as dirt was shoveled over his small coffin. The toddler was asleep when the quake's tremors brought down his bedroom walls on top of him, his mother and older brother. Maximo died shortly after he was pulled out of the rubble.
Drone footage of earthquake damage in Oaxaca
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Maximo's 48-year-old grandmother Alma Alverez told Reuters news agency that she was displeased at Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's response to the disaster. The president made a brief appearance in the city on Friday, declaring three days of national mourning and pledging to rebuild.
"Pena Nieto was able to make it here in his helicopter super fast. That's how help should be arriving, right? Exactly how he got here. But it hasn't," Alvarez said, reflecting a belief that southern Mexico has been neglected by the richer north.
Rescues ongoing
Rescuers continued to comb through the rubble with sniffer dogs and heavy machinery to search for survivors.
Relatives and friends lined the streets of Juchitan to pay their respects to those killed in Thursday's earthquakeImage: picture-alliance/AP Photo/F. Marquez
Several residents dragged mattresses onto sidewalks to sleep outdoors, with some concerned that their badly damaged homes could collapse at any moment.
The earthquake was felt around 800 kilometers (500 miles) away in Mexico City and as far south as Honduras.
Just one day after the quake struck, Hurricane Katia made landfall north of Tecoluta in Veracruz state as a Category One storm.
rs/sms (AP, Reuters)
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.
