All good, Mr. Phil?

Powerful Earthquake Shakes Mexico, 21 Dead
Wed January 22, 2003 02:42 AM ET
By Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck central and western Mexico on Tuesday night, killing at least 21 people on the Pacific coast and sending panicked residents rushing into the streets in tears.

"There are many houses that have fallen down and many buildings destroyed," Red Cross volunteer Marta Requena said from the western city of Colima near the epicenter.

The earthquake was at least 7.6 in magnitude, big enough to cause substantial damage.

Emergency workers said they could barely cope with the casualties in Colima, a city of some 125,000 people where walls and homes collapsed.

"We don't have electricity. we don't have medicine, we don't have anything," Requena told Reuters by telephone.

The city is the capital of a small state of the same name which is devoted mostly to agriculture. It is also home to the active Volcano of Fire which last erupted in 1998.

The Seismological Service at Mexico City's UNAM University said the quake struck at 8:09 p.m. (9:09 EST), and measured 7.6. The U.S. Geological Survey put the quake's magnitude at 7.8.

Fernando Moreno, governor of Colima state, said at least 19 people were killed there. "There is extensive damage to homes, mostly in the (state) capital, there are many houses damaged," he told Televisa television news.

A woman and a baby also died in the neighboring state of Jalisco, emergency services said.

FRIGHT IN MEXICO CITY

The quake rocked homes and offices in Mexico City, 310 miles to the east, where power was briefly cut and cracks appeared on buildings.

Still, the shaking earth brought back unpleasant memories of a 1985 quake in Mexico City that killed more than 10,000 people.

"I was putting my kid to bed when everything started to move. We ran out with all our neighbors. I was just thinking of '85, the earthquake of '85," said Beatriz Reyes, a resident of the central Mexico City neighborhood of La Roma, which was one of the hardest hit in 1985.

On Mexico City's central boulevard, Reforma, two twenty-story buildings, the Sevilla Palace Hotel and a government building, bumped together during the quake, said witnesses who briefly evacuated both buildings.

But the city appears to have dodged a bullet, with only a few dozen people treated for shock. "So far we do not have any injured people or any fatalities," Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard told local radio.

(With reporting by Karina Balderas, Kieran Murray, Fiona Ortiz and Chris Aspin)