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Mexico (AFP) – Two dead and more than 3,000 damaged buildings left the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that shook Mexico on Monday, when two deadly earthquakes that occurred on the same date in 1985 and 2017 were commemorated, authorities reported Tuesday.
A woman died in Manzanillo, in the state of Colima (west), “after being severely injured by a wall that collapsed,” said Laura Velázquez, head of federal Civil Protection.
In that town, a man also lost his life due to the fall of a roof in a commercial plaza, Velázquez added in the daily conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Another nine people were injured in Colima, while 26 received hospital care in Coahuayana, a municipality in the neighboring state of Michoacán, where the earthquake recorded at 1:05 p.m. local time (18:05 GMT) had its epicenter.
“We were lucky because it was a tremor of considerable intensity. The loss of human life is unfortunate (…), but it did not happen to majors,” said López Obrador.
More than 3,000 homes affected in Michoacán
In Michoacán, damage was also reported in 3,161 houses, 89 educational establishments, 21 health centers and three churches in various locations, as well as minor damage to road points, for which the Government announced an emergency declaration to release resources.
In Colima there was damage to more than 150 homes and other facilities.
According to the authorities, until this Tuesday almost 700 aftershocks of the earthquake had been registered, the strongest of 5.8 of magnitude in the early morning. One of the tremors caused evacuations in Jalisco (west) on Tuesday afternoon.
National drill for the earthquakes of 1985 and 2017
The main movement occurred less than an hour after millions of people participated in an earthquake drill, as it has been held every September 19 for 21 years.
On the same date in 1985, an earthquake of 8.1 shook Mexico, leaving large areas of the capital in ruins. According to civil registry data, more than 10,000 people died in the megacity alone.
Meanwhile, on September 19, 2017, another 7.1 earthquake surprised Mexicans, leaving 369 dead.
Experts from the National Seismological Service explained on Monday that the occurrence of these three earthquakes on the same date is the product of a “coincidence.”
Most of these phenomena in Mexico originate in the Pacific, which has allowed the development of a seismic alert system in the center of the country.
With a thunderous sound, this alarm travels faster than seismic waves and warns of a major earthquake one minute on average before it occurs, allowing you to evacuate homes or find a safe area.
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