MEXICO CITY: On the anniversary of two terrible earthquakes, a magnitude 7.6 quake shook western Mexico, killing at least two people, damaging buildings, cutting out power, and forcing inhabitants of Mexico City to flee for safety.
Authorities said that two people died in the Pacific port of Manzanillo, one of whom was found dead at a mall and the other of whom was crushed by a department store’s facade. Social media videos showed the mall’s roof collapsing into the top floor’s gym as people screamed for rescue.
Authorities also reported damage to a number of hospitals in the western state of Michoacan, which was close to the epicentre and located in an area of Mexico with a low population.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake struck shortly after 1 p.m. (1800 GMT) close to Mexico’s west coast and the state of Colima’s border with Michoacan, where the significant port of Manzanillo is situated.
Its impact would have been amplified because it was quite shallow, only 15 km (9 miles) below the surface. A tsunami warning was issued for coastal areas by the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which stated that waves up to three metres (nine feet) above the tide level were likely.
Following the quake that shook Mexico on the same day as terrible quakes that decimated the country in 1985 and 2017, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said there were no initial reports of serious damage in the capital of the country.
The earthquake’s timing, according to 34-year-old graphic designer Isa Montes of the city’s Roma neighbourhood, “looks like a curse” as helicopters hovered overhead surveying the city.
Three significant quakes occurred on the same day, according to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), one of the most esteemed institutions of higher learning in the nation, and they were simply coincidences, according to UNAM.
Others, though, found it difficult to believe.”This is the date. The 19th offers a lot of things, “said Ernesto Lanzetta, a businessman from the Cuauhtemoc neighbourhood of the city. “Fear not on the nineteenth.”
