The death toll is rising in southeastern Mexico after a 7.1 Magnitude earthquake struck on Tuesday. At least 225 people were killed when the strong quake collapsed buildings. Now rescuers are conducting frantic searches for survivors. 

 

At least 25 students and teachers were killed when an elementary school collapsed in Mexico City. All but four of them were children. 

 

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto visited the wreckage last night, where rescuers were digging for the missing. 

 

U.S. citizen Brittany Kaiser was giving a presentation in Mexico City when it struck. She and thousands of people fled to the streets as the air filled with smoke from collapsed buildings.

 

Rescue teams and volunteers searched through the rubble for victims. They found several people trapped, and lifted them to safety on stretchers. 

 

The deadly earthquake happened exactly 32 years after the 1985 Mexico quake that killed thousands. 

 

Mexico's President urged calm after the earthquake. He said the biggest priority now is to find people still missing and to give medical attention to those who are injured. However, that could take time as there are at least 44 buildings just in the capital that have collapsed.</s>More than 100 persons reported dead and toll continues to climb after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck central Mexico, foreign media reported.Over 100 dead in state of Puebla toppling building in Capital city.</s>MEXICO CITY (AP) — A powerful earthquake shook central Mexico on Tuesday, collapsing buildings in plumes of dust and killing at least 226 people. Thousands fled into the streets in panic, and many stayed to help rescue those trapped. Dozens of buildings tumbled into mounds of rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of ...</s>Mexico Combs Rubble For Survivors After Earthquake Kills More Than 200

As the morning sun rose over the cities of Central Mexico on Wednesday, where city blocks had lain neatly arranged, there was now a mess of rubble and stunned residents, watching as thousands of earthquake volunteers and rescue workers dug through scattered stones searching for signs of life.

The 7.1 magnitude quake struck Tuesday in Puebla state, some 75 miles from Mexico City, but it devastated a vast expanse of the country. The head of Mexico's civil defense agency said Wednesday afternoon that 223 people had died in the temblor, revising the total death toll down from 225.

That number is expected to change as more rubble is pulled away.

In Mexico City, where the agency says 93 people died, search efforts took on particular intensity at a collapsed school. Escuela Enrique Rebsamen — a school geared toward children ages 3 to 14, according to Reuters — caved in on dozens of students and their teachers Tuesday.

Rescue workers have found the bodies of at least 25 people, including 21 children, according to Mexican Education Minister Aurelio Nuño. He has said at least 30 more people are missing, though hope remains: In the late morning local time, Nuño said 11 people had been rescued.

The rescue efforts have also yielded terrible discoveries, too. One volunteer had managed to dig his way into a collapsed classroom, The Associated Press reports, "only to find all of its occupants dead."

"We saw some chairs and wooden tables," he told the news service. "The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults."

Yet families have not relented in their search.

"By the school," NPR's Carrie Kahn reports, "there's an intersection with a bunch of string that's been tied between trees and people have put the names of the children in the school up there. It's just filled with sheets of white paper with names scribbled on them."

Across the city, Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera said at least 52 survivors have been pulled from the rubble.

Elsewhere, in the state of Morelos, at least 69 people died, while the earthquake's effects killed at least 43 people in Puebla state. And 18 others died in three other states in the region.

One of the areas hardest hit by the quake resides in Morelos. The municipality of Jojutla, which sits near the epicenter, saw at least 1,800 homes and businesses severely damaged, according to The Guardian — some 300 of which were destroyed entirely. The paper, citing local news outlets, reports that every single building in the town center showed signs of damage.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto toured the town Wednesday, promising coordinated support to the devastated area.

In a stroke of terrible coincidence, Tuesday's earthquake struck 32 years to the day to one of the worst temblors in the country's history. That 1985 quake took thousands of lives and shattered cities, including Mexico City, wreaking such destruction that the country continues to mark its anniversary with simulated drills.

In fact, as Emily Green reports for NPR, not two hours before Tuesday's temblor hit, sirens rang out in cities across the country to commemorate the deadly event and prompt residents to practice evacuation drills.

Shortly after those residents returned to their buildings, they felt those same buildings rattle. One witness had been standing in a Mexico City plaza when the shaking came.

"The trees were moving. I thought maybe the trees would fall over us. It was just a nightmare," she told Emily. "That's the best way to describe it: a really bad nightmare."

Peña Nieto spoke over the phone with President Trump, who "offered assistance and search-and-rescue teams, which are being deployed now," according to the White House.

The Mexican president declared three days of national mourning to commemorate the earthquake's victims.

"The priority continues to be rescuing the people in collapsed structures and to tend to the injured. Every minute counts towards saving lives," Peña Nieto said in a series of tweets. "I am grateful and recognize the thousands of volunteers and public servants that are participating in the rescue work."

He added: "The strength, determination and solidarity of the Mexicans in the face of this disaster will allow us to come out on top."</s>The state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, was also hard hit with 55 killed, Puente said. At least 12 people were killed in the neighboring state of Mexico, and three deaths were reported in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast.</s>The death toll in a major Mexican earthquake has risen from 149 to 226.

A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake rocked Mexico late on Tuesday. It was the second major earthquake in the country over the past weeks with the previous one, the 5.7 magnitude earthquake, occurring on September 8.

The epicenter of the earthquake was located 49 kilometers (some 30.5 miles) south-west of the city of Puebla de Zaragoza at a depth of 60 kilometers, the report by the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) showed.</s>A powerful 7.1 earthquake rocked central Mexico on Tuesday, collapsing homes and bridges across hundreds of miles, killing at least 217 people and sending thousands more fleeing into the streets screaming in a country still reeling from a deadly temblor that struck less than two weeks ago.

Entire apartment blocks swayed violently in the center of Mexico City, including in the historic districts of El Centro and Roma, crumbling balconies and causing huge cracks to appear on building facades.

Panic spread through the city’s core; rescue vehicles raced toward damaged buildings, and neighbors took on heroic roles as rescuers.

UPDATE: Frantic search continues for survivors>>

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Firefighters and police officers scrambled to pull survivors from a collapsed elementary and secondary school where children died.

“There are 22 bodies here — two are adults — 30 children are missing and eight other adults missing. And workers are continuing rescue efforts,” President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Tuesday night.

At least 86 people were reported killed and 44 buildings severely damaged in the capital alone. Twelve other people died in the surrounding state of Mexico, 71 across the state of Morelos, 43 in Puebla state, four in Guerrero state and one in Oaxaca, according to Mexican officials.

The temblor struck 32 years to the day after another powerful earthquake that killed thousands and devastated large parts of Mexico City — a tragedy that Peña Nieto had commemorated earlier Tuesday.

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Around 11 a.m., Julian Dominguez heard alarms sounding in the neighborhood of Iztapalapa, part of a citywide drill to mark the anniversary of the magnitude 8.0 quake. Schools and other buildings evacuated, but he kept working at his computer.

About two hours later, Dominguez, 27, started to feel the building move, and alarms sounded again.

“It started really slowly,” he said, but within seconds it was clear that this was no drill.

Dominguez raced down a flight of stairs. Crowds of people already had gathered outside. Parents were crying, worried for their children still in school.

“It was strange that it fell on the same day … as another earthquake that caused so much damage,” Dominguez said.

The federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City and dispatched 3,428 troops to affected areas there and in nearby states.

“We are facing a new emergency in Mexico City, in the state of Puebla and Morelos, following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake,” Peña Nieto said, adding that he had asked all hospitals to help care for the injured.

(Raoul Rañoa / Los Angeles Times)

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On Amsterdam Street, a normally tranquil road that rings a major park in the upscale Mexico City neighborhood of Condesa, a large apartment building disintegrated into a pile of concrete and dust.

Hundreds of residents helped a team of soldiers, police officers and firefighters search the rubble for survivors. Many of the men were shirtless in the late summer heat, and everyone was covered with dust.

Juan Jose Martinez, 52, felt the earthquake at his home several miles away. There was no damage to his neighborhood, so he and three relatives grabbed shovels and construction helmets and set out on foot to Condesa.

“What else would we do?” he said. “This is our Mexico. Everybody needs help sometimes.”

Some rescuers commandeered shopping carts from a nearby supermarket and formed a human chain to haul away rubble. Several times, a warning went up about a possible aftershock or gas leak, sending hordes of panicked people running.

But there were few places that would be safe. Amsterdam, like many streets in Condesa, is narrow and lined with trees and power lines, all of which could turn deadly in an aftershock.

The neighborhood was filled with thousands of dazed survivors too afraid to return to their homes. They stood around holding their heads and checking social media feeds on their phones. Many ducked into their apartments to bring food and water for rescuers.

At Xochimilco, the famed series of canals plied by gaily decorated boats, the quake set off large waves that rocked the boats filled with tourists.

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1 / 69 The search continues for victims buried under the rubble of a fallen office building along Calle Alvaro Obregon in La Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 69 MEXICO CITY, -- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2017: People look for relatives and loved ones on a list posted where families set up tents to camp along Calle Alvaro Obregon as the search continues for victims buried under the rubble in La Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City, on Sept. 24, 2017. A powerful 7.1 earthquake rocked central Mexico on Tuesday, collapsing homes and bridges across hundreds of miles, killing at least 300 people. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 69 Susana Coronel Flores, whose nephew, Adrian Moreno, is missing in a collapsed building, sheds a tear as the search continues for victims buried under the rubble along Calle Alvaro Obregon in La Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 69 Residents stand in the street after the earthquake alarm sounded in Mexico City on Saturday morning before the shaking from a magnitude 6.1 aftershock in Oaxaca state reached the capital, causing buildings to sway. (Natacha Pisarenko / Associated Press) 5 / 69 Rescue teams stop their work Saturday after the earthquake alert sounded in Mexico City, four days after the powerful quake that hit central Mexico. There were no immediate reports of major new damage or casualties in the capital. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) 6 / 69 Residents evacuate apartment buildings in the Tlatelolco neighborhood after an earthquake alert sounded in Mexico City on Saturday morning, four days after the powerful quake that hit central Mexico. (AFP / Getty Images) 7 / 69 Leodegaria Comonfort Ramirez, 49, whose home was destroyed in the recent quake, has a fractured shoulder and now shares a home with her neighbors in Jojutla. Her daughter was killed when the second story of the building they lived in came down on her head. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 69 Margarita Martinez, left, shown with her children, sits where her home used to stand in the Mexican town of Jojutla, Morelos. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 69 Maria Elena Jimenez Arizmendi, 81, sits outside her destroyed home in Jojutla with a few of her belongings packed into plastic bags. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 69 Heróico Ayuntamiento, Jojutla’s local government office, suffered major structural damage in the recent earthquake. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 69 Volunteers remove rubble alongside the Mexican military, beginning the reconstruction process where a block of homes in Jojutla was destroyed by the recent quake. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 69 Maria de Pilar Paez Castillo, 69, receives medical attention outside a tent that she sleeps in near her damaged home in Jojutla. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 69 Clara Velazquez Camargo, 77, right, tells her son Arturo Perez she would prefer to stay in a tent at a shelter at the La Perseverancia sport complex in Jojutla. “I want to live; I am afraid to return to my son’s home,” she said. The shelter is housing 350 people. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 69 Neighbors place a tarp over part of the street near Leodegaria Comonfort Ramirez’s home, left, which was destroyed in the recent quake in Jojutla, killing Ramirez’s daughter. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 69 The reconstruction process begins as residents discard their personal items damaged by the recent quake in Jojutla. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 69 A worker repairs power lines next to Heróico Ayuntamiento, Jojutla’s local government office. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 69 A crane removes a concrete stairway from a collapsed building in the Colonia neighborhood in Mexico City. (Pedro Pardo / AFP/Getty Images) 18 / 69 People pin notes and flowers to a sidewalk memorial at a park in front of one of a collapsed building in Mexico City. (Luis Perez / AFP/Getty Images) 19 / 69 Family members embrace as they wait for news of their relatives outside a quake-collapsed seven-story building in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighborhood. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) 20 / 69 Japanese rescuers take part in the search for survivors at a flattened building in Mexico City three days after a strong quake hit central Mexico. (Yuri Cortez / AFP/Getty Images) 21 / 69 Soldiers and volunteers remove a car crushed by debris from a flattened building in Mexico City. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images) 22 / 69 Volunteer Elidia Marcos, 23, holds a sign asking for water, medicine and tools to aid victims of the earthquake in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 69 Volunteer Fernando Gedeño, 20, carries wood to be used to support the structure of the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school on Mexico City’s south side. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 69 Refugio Gonzalez, 85, left, is comforted by volunteer Lety Rebollar, 19, of Mexico state, in a shelter holding 460 people displaced by the earthquake at Centro Deportivo Benito Juarez sports complex in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 69 Rosalba Ramirez Vargas, center, and the prayer group “the Best Friends of Jesus” pray the rosary while anxiously waiting for news from rescue crews searching for children trapped in the rubble at Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 69 A rescue worker listens for signs of a person trapped under the rubble of a building felled by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Mexico City’s Ciudad Jardin neighborhood. (Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press) 27 / 69 The Mexican Army load ruble into dump trucks while rescue teams work at night continuing to look for people trapped underneath a collapsed six story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 69 Rescue teams working at night continue to look for people trapped underneath the ruble of a collapsed six story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 69 The Mexican Army along side civilians load debris while search and rescue continues for people in a collapsed six story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 69 Members of the Mexican Navy look on while a search and rescue team ooks for victims under the rubble at a collapsed building where five people were found dead in Colonia Roma in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 69 Rescuers work at the top of a destroyed building in Mexico City trying to rescue a man two days after the magnitude 7.1 earthquake. (Pedro Mera / Getty Images) 32 / 69 A rescuer from Israel, center, takes part in the search for survivors in a flattened building in Mexico City two days after a strong quake hit central Mexico. (YURI CORTEZ / AFP/Getty Images) 33 / 69 Rescue services and volunteers raise their hands to ask for absolute silence during their search for victims under the debris of the school that collapsed in Mexico City. (JOSE MENDEZ / EPA / Shutterstock) 34 / 69 Mexico City residents scan the names of people who have been rescued and others who are still missing after the magnitude 7.1 earthquake. (Pedro Pardo / AFP/Getty Images) 35 / 69 An army of rescuers, firefighters, police, soldiers and volunteers search for survivors in a flattened building in Mexico City. (Mario Vazquez / AFP/Getty Images) 36 / 69 People who lost their homes in the earthquake rest inside a gymnasium turned in an evacuation center in Mexico City. (Jorge Dan Lopez / EPA/Shutterstock) 37 / 69 Rescuers search for survivors amid the rubble of a building flattened by the earthquake. (Pedro Pardo / AFP/Getty Images) 38 / 69 Volunteers await news as rescue teams look for people trapped beneath the rubble of a six-story residential building in Colonia Condesa, Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 69 Rescue teams use a blow torch on a slab of cement while looking for people trapped in the the rubble of a collapsed residential building in Mexico City Wednesday night. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 69 People anxiously wait for news from rescue crews as the search continues for children trapped in the rubble of Enrique Rebsamen School in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 69 Dairo Martinez, right, 15, looks for the name of his friend Reyna Davila, a student at Enrique Rebsamen School in Mexico City, on Sept. 20. The school collapsed in the 7.1 earthquake the day before. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 69 A pair of heavily damaged churches are left partially standing in Jojutla, Morelos state, Mexico, following a 7.1 earthquake that killed more than 200 people. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) 43 / 69 The sky is exposed from inside the Santiago Apostol Church, which collapsed during Tuesday’s 7.1 earthquake in the town of Atzala in Puebla state, Mexico. (Pablo Spencer / Associated Press) 44 / 69 The Santiago Apostol Church in Atzala, in Puebla state, suffered major damage during Tuesday’s 7.1 earthquake in Mexico. (Pablo Spencer / Associated Press) 45 / 69 Rescue workers search for people trapped inside a collapsed building in the Del Valle area of Mexico City. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) 46 / 69 A survivor is pulled from the rubble from a flattened building in Mexico City. (Pedro Pardo / AFP/Getty Images) 47 / 69 An aerial view shows a flattened building in Mexico City. The search for survivors was continuing a day after a powerful quake hit the central part of the country. (Mario Vazquez / AFP/Getty Images) 48 / 69 Rescuers use a dog to search for survivors who may be buried under the rubble of a building flattened by a 7.1 earthquake in Mexico City. (Diana Ulloa / AFP/Getty Images) 49 / 69 Search and rescue teams continue to remove rubble and look for people in a collapsed six-story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 69 Search and rescue teams remove rubble at a collapsed six-story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 69 Rescue workers search for children trapped inside the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City. (Carlos Cisneros / Associated Press) 52 / 69 Rescuers work at the Enrique Rebsamen school after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Mexico City. (EPA/Shutterstock ) 53 / 69 In this photo provided by Francisco Caballero Gout, shot through a window of the Torre Latina, dust rises over downtown Mexico City during a 7.1 earthquake Tuesday. (Francisco Caballero Gout / Associated Press) 54 / 69 Volunteers and rescue workers search for children trapped inside the Enrique Rebsamen school, collapsed by a powerful earthquake in Mexico City. (Miguel Tovar / Associated Press) 55 / 69 Alejandra Reynoso, left, and boyfriend Alejandro Gamez wait for news on Gamez’s sister Karen Nayeli, who is missing at a collapsed office building along Calle Alvaro Obregon in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 69 People look for family and friends on a list of people rescued from an office building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 57 / 69 Search and rescue workers continue looking for people trapped in a collapsed six-story residential building in Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 69 A car crushed by debris from a damaged building after a quake rattled Mexico City. (ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP/Getty Images) 59 / 69 Rescuers, firefighters, police officers, soldiers and volunteers remove rubble and debris from a flattened building in search of survivors after a powerful quake in Mexico City. (Yuri Cortez / AFP/Getty Images) 60 / 69 An injured man is pulled out of a building that collapsed during an earthquake in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) 61 / 69 People try to rescue survivors from a collapsed building in Mexico City on Tuesday. (Sáshenka Gutiérrez / EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) 62 / 69 People search for survivors in a collapsed building in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City on Tuesday. (Enric Marti / Associated Press) 63 / 69 A construction worker searches a building that collapsed in Mexico City. (Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press) 64 / 69 Rescuers and volunteers remove rubble from a collapsed building in search of survivors in Mexico City. (Yuri Cortez / AFP / Getty Images) 65 / 69 A car is crushed by debris from a building damaged in the 7.1 magnitude temblor. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images) 66 / 69 Hospital patients receive medical treatment on a Mexico City street after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake centered in neighborhing Puebla state. (Jose Mendez / European Pressphoto Agency) 67 / 69 People in Mexico City remove debris after a building collapsed in a powerful earthquake on Tuesday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images) 68 / 69 A security guard walks over debris of a collapsed building in the capital. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) 69 / 69 People in Mexico City search a building that collapsed after a powerful earthquake centered southeast in neighboring Puebla state on Tuesday. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images)

In Roma, an upscale neighborhood that experienced some of the worst destruction in the 1985 earthquake, several low-rise buildings collapsed Tuesday. Among them was a commercial structure that housed a furniture store on the first floor.

Itzel Hernandez Galvan, 21, was in her car, about to head home from her job at a marketing firm, when she heard people screaming and realized that part of the building was about to collapse onto her car. She opened the door and ran as half of the building broke off, crushing her car and taking out trees and power lines.

“I ran, and I survived,” she said, still covered in dust. Others weren’t so lucky. Several people were buried alive, she said.

Rescue workers managed to pull at least eight survivors from the rubble, but Galvan said she saw a child who had been killed.

As a large crowd gathered, Mexican soldiers labored to clear away slabs of concrete. At one point, the soldiers thought they heard someone calling out for help from beneath the rubble and appealed for silence. But after some time, they determined that it was nothing.

Most people were at work or at school when the earthquake hit. Across the capital, the survivors poured into the streets to walk home, searching for information about loved ones and posting the names of the missing on trees and lampposts. Public transportation had ceased to function in a sprawling city so large it can take three hours to get home.

“It’s very horrendous,” said Guillermo Lozano, the humanitarian and emergency affairs director for World Vision Mexico, a Christian humanitarian organization. “Everything was moving — the stairs were moving, things were falling down.”

Among the destroyed buildings was a supermarket where survivors could be heard crying out for help, he said. Staff members at a children’s hospital were tending to patients in the streets.

Building standards have improved since the 1985 quake, Lozano said, but there are many old buildings in the city, which were among the worst-hit.

When the quake struck, he was in a meeting coordinating relief efforts for southern Mexico, where at least 90 people died in another powerful temblor on Sept. 7.

“We will need a lot of help,” Lozano said.

Authorities in Morelos reported major damage to the cities of Jojutla, Cuernavaca and Axochiapan.

“This is the first time in the history of Morelos that we have experienced something like this — a 7.1 magnitude earthquake,” the state governor, Graco Ramirez, told reporters. “We’re going to work hard overnight to try and rescue as many victims as we can find.”

He said Morelos was receiving assistance from other nearby states. “We’re all united and working together,” Ramirez said. “There is no doubt that we will recover from this.”

Mexico sits in one of the world’s most seismically active areas, as the floor of the Pacific Ocean south of the country is sliding underneath the North American plate. Mexico City is prone to major damage in earthquakes because it was built on an old lake bed, which amplifies the shaking.

The U.S. Geological Survey calculated the magnitude of Tuesday’s temblor at 7.1 and said the epicenter was about 80 miles southeast of Mexico City in the state of Puebla.

The city Puebla, about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, also appeared to have suffered significant damage. Social media were filled with photographs of buildings that had collapsed into the streets, and there were reports that some of the city’s famed ornate churches, erected in the colonial era, had been damaged.

Susan Hough, a USGS seismologist, said the quake may have been related to the one that struck off the coast of Mexico’s Oaxaca state on Sept. 7, which the government calculated as a magnitude 8.2 and her agency as an 8.1.

“An 8.1 is big enough that having an aftershock this big and this distant — it isn’t too surprising,” Hough said. “It’s unusual, but it fits in with the picture that we’ve grown to understand.”

News of the latest disaster spread fear across the republic.

Mariela Alvarez, 30, was getting her nails done in San Vicente in the coastal state of Nayarit when she heard about the earthquake. She immediately thought of her 25-year-old sister, Gabriela Alvarez, who has lived in Mexico City for about five years.

She called her sister five times, growing more and more nervous every time she got her voicemail. “I imagined terrible things,” Mariela said. “I was really scared.”

She reached out to her father, who was at work. He told her that he had heard from Gabriela. She was fine.

“We could talk to her and so we feel calm, but there are people who still don’t know,” Mariela said.

As night fell, volunteers carried food, water, flashlights and other basics to people camping out in streets still littered with glass and debris.

As night fell on Mexico City, entire neighborhoods were plunged into darkness. Authorities begged residents in less affected areas to donate flashlights and lanterns so rescuers could keep working though the night.

Many were too frightened to return home and wandered the streets toting luggage and pets, looking for safer ground. Strangers offered strangers places to stay. They looked after one another.

In Condesa, an eight-story building threatened to collapse near an area where volunteers were collecting donations of food, water, batteries and flashlights. Despite fears of aftershocks — every few moments a panicked shout went up — the volunteers stayed on to help, working into the night.

Times staff writers Linthicum reported from Mexico City, Lin from San Francisco and Zavis and Vives from Los Angeles. Special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez and staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report from Mexico City and Nayarit, Mexico, respectively.

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Mexico got early warning before deadly earthquake struck. When will California get that system?

From the Archives 1985: Mexico City in Chaos as Buildings Fall; Death Toll Heavy

UPDATES:

4:25 a.m. Sept. 20: This article was updated with a revised death toll.

11:20 p.m.: This article was updated with a revised death toll.

9:25 p.m.: This article was updated with a new death toll and accounts from eyewitnesses.

7:45 p.m: This article was updated with the death toll rising to at least 139, a state of disaster declared in Mexico City and other details.

5:50 p.m.: This article was updated with the latest breakdown of casualties according to Mexico’s National Center for the Prevention of Disasters, details of the devastation and quotes from survivors.

4:05 p.m.: This article was updated with the death toll rising to at least 105.

3 p.m.: This article was updated with four deaths reported in Mexico City, description of the rescue efforts and other details.

1:50 p.m.: This article was updated with 42 deaths reported in Morelos.

1:30 p.m.: This article was updated with two deaths reported and to include comments from Angel Mancera and Alfredo del Mazo.

12:50 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with staff reporting.

12:35 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with additional details and background.

12:05 p.m.: This article was updated with a revised magnitude estimate and additional details.

This article was originally published at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 19.</s>By The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — US Geological Survey says earthquake that hit Mexico was 7.1 magnitude, located in central state of Puebla.

Copyright © 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.</s>A delicate effort to reach a young girl buried in the rubble of her school stretched into a new day on Thursday, a vigil broadcast across the nation as rescue workers struggled in rain and darkness to pick away unstable debris and reach her.

The sight of her wiggling fingers early Wednesday became a symbol for the hope that drove thousands of professionals and volunteers to work frantically at dozens of wrecked buildings across the capital and nearby states looking for survivors of the magnitude 7.1 quake that killed at least 245 people in central Mexico and injured over 2,000.

Mexico's navy announced early Thursday it had recovered the body of a school worker from the Enrique Rebsamen school, but still had not been able to rescue the trapped child.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said the number of confirmed dead in the capital had risen from 100 to 115. An earlier federal government statement had put the overall toll at 230, including 100 deaths in Mexico City.

Mancera also said two women and a man had been pulled alive from a collapsed office building in the city's center Wednesday night, almost 36 hours after the quake.

President Enrique Pena Nieto declared three days of mourning while soldiers, police, firefighters and everyday citizens kept digging through rubble, at times with their hands gaining an inch at a time, at times with cranes and backhoes to lift heavy slabs of concrete.

"There are still people groaning. There are three more floors to remove rubble from. And you still hear people in there," said Evodio Dario Marcelino, a volunteer who was working with dozens of others at a collapsed apartment building.

A man was pulled alive from a partly collapsed apartment building in northern Mexico City more than 24 hours after the Tuesday quake and taken away in a stretcher, apparently conscious

In all, 52 people had been rescued alive since the quake, the city's Social Development Department said, adding in a tweet: "We won't stop." It was a race against time, Pena Nieto warned in a tweet of his own saying that "every minute counts to save lives."

But the country's attention focused on the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school on the city's south side, where 21 children and five adults have now been confirmed dead.

Hopes rose Wednesday when workers told local media they had detected signs that one girl was alive and she speaking to them through a hole dug in the rubble. Thermal imaging suggested several more people might be in the airspace around her.

A volunteer rescue worker, Hector Mendez, said cameras lowered into the rubble suggested there might be four people still inside, but he added that it wasn't clear if anyone beside the girl was alive.

Dr. Alfredo Vega, who was working with the rescue team, said that a girl who he identified only as "Frida Sofia" had been located alive under the pancaked floor slabs.

Vega said "she is alive, and she is telling us that there are five more children alive" in the same space.

But the navy said the identity of the girl is unclear because no relatives of the child have come forward with information.

The debris removed from the school changed as crews worked their way deeper, from huge chunks of brick and concrete to pieces of wood that looked like remnants of desks and paneling to a load that contained a half dozen sparkly hula-hoops.

Rescuers carried in lengths of wide steel pipe big enough for someone to crawl through, apparently trying to create a tunnel into the collapsed slabs of the three-story school building. But a heavy rain fell during the night, and the tottering pile of rubble had to be shored up with hundreds of wooden beams.

People have rallied to help their neighbors in a huge volunteer effort that includes people from all walks of life in Mexico City, where social classes seldom mix. Doctors, dentists and lawyers stood alongside construction workers and street sweepers, handing buckets of debris or chunks of concrete hand-to-hand down the line.

At a collapsed factory building closer to the city's center, giant cranes lifted huge slabs of concrete from the towering pile of rubble, like peeling layers from an onion. Workers with hand tools would quickly move in to look for signs of survivors and begin attacking the next layer.

Government rescue worker Alejandro Herrera said three bodies had been found Wednesday afternoon at the factory.

"There are sounds (beneath the rubble), but we don't know if they are coming from inside or if it is the sound of the rubble," Herrera said.

Not only humans were pulled out.

Mexico City police said rescue workers clearing wreckage from a collapsed medical laboratory in the Roma neighborhood found and removed 40 lab rabbits and 13 lab rats used by the firm that had occupied the building, now a pile of beams and rubble.

In addition to those killed in Mexico City, the federal civil defense agency said 69 died in Morelos state just south of the capital and 43 in Puebla state to the southeast, where the quake was centered. The rest of the deaths were in Mexico State, which borders Mexico City on three sides, Guerrero and Oaxaca states.

In Atzala in Puebla state, villagers mourned 11 family members who died inside a church when it crumbled during a baptism for a 2-month-old girl. People at the wake said the only ones to survive were the baby's father, the priest and the priest's assistant.

Power was being restored in some Mexico City neighborhoods that already spent a day without power. The mayor said there were 38 collapsed buildings in the capital, down from the 44 he had announced previously.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>MEXICO CITY – Rescuers labored against long odds into the dawn on Thursday to save a 12-year-old schoolgirl and untold other survivors who may be trapped beneath crumpled buildings in central Mexico following the country’s deadliest earthquake in 32 years.

More than 50 survivors have been plucked from several disaster sites since Tuesday afternoon’s 7.1-magnitude quake, leading to impassioned choruses of “Yes we can!” from the first responders, volunteers and spectators gathered around the ruins.

At least 237 others have died and 1,900 were injured.

As the odds of survival lengthened with each passing hour, officials vowed to continue with search-and-rescue efforts such as the one at a collapsed school in southern Mexico City where Navy-led rescuers could communicate with the 12-year-old girl but were still unable to dig her free.

Eleven other children were rescued from the Enrique Rebsamen School, where the students are aged roughly six to 15 but 21 students and four adults there were killed.

Rescuers previously had seen a hand protruding from the debris and the girl wiggled her fingers when asked if she was still alive, according to broadcaster Televisa, whose cameras and reporters had special access to the scene to provide nonstop live coverage.

But some 15 hours into the effort, Admiral Jose Luis Vergara said rescuers still could not pinpoint her location.

“There’s a girl alive in there, we’re pretty sure of that, but we still don’t know how to get to her,” Vergara told Televisa.

“The hours that have passed complicate the chances of finding alive or in good health the person who might be trapped,” he said.

As Vergara spoke, a human chain of hard-hatted rescuers removed a large chunk of concrete from the floodlit scene.

Rescuers periodically demanded “total silence” from bystanders, who would freeze in place and stay quiet to better hear any calls for help.

As with other disaster sites throughout central Mexico, officials dared not employ heavy lifting equipment for fear of crushing anyone below.

Throughout the capital, crews were joined by volunteers and bystanders who used dogs, cameras, motion detectors and heat-seeking equipment to detect victims who may still be alive. Some 52 buildings collapsed in Mexico City alone and more in the surrounding states.

The quake killed 102 people in Mexico City and the remaining 135 from five surrounding states, officials said late on Wednesday.

At least nine Latin American countries pledged to rush in search-and-rescue teams or technical assistance, with crews from Panama and El Salvador already on the job, as did the United States, Spain, Japan and Israel.

The Panamanian team of 32 rescue workers dressed in orange jumpsuits and helmets and two dogs arrived with seven days’ worth of food, water and supplies and prepared to work around the clock, said Cesar Lange, leader of the Panamanian Civil Protection unit.

The earthquake struck about 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon, shattering glass, shearing off sides of buildings and leaving others in dusty piles of destruction.

It came on the same date as a 1985 tremor that killed thousands and still resonates in Mexico. Annual September 19 earthquake drills were being held a few hours before the nation got rocked once again.

Mexico was still recovering from another powerful quake less than two weeks ago that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country.

The epicenter was 51 km (32 miles) beneath the surface, sending major shockwaves through the metropolitan area of some 20 million people. Much of the capital is built upon an ancient lake bed that shakes like jelly during a quake.
Searches continue for possible survivors of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit central Mexico yesterday. By mid-afternoon, 52 people are rescued while at least 226 people have been killed and another 800 injured.