Although the powerful earthquake that struck Tuesday may have lasted about a minute in real time, for Isela Rodríguez, who was visiting a friend in Mexico City’s Colonia Escandón, it felt like an eternity.
The earthquake happened on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 magnitude 8.0 quake that killed thousands of people and destroyed large parts of Mexico City.
Earlier in the day, workplaces across Mexico City had held earthquake readiness drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, Rodríguez said.
“My friend had already told me there was going to be a drill,” she said in Spanish in a phone interview with The Rider from Mexico City earlier today. “The drill passed and the alarms and all the procedures went as planned. Everything was fine. About a half-hour or hour later, the quake struck. I thought it was part of the drill at first. … I didn’t know what to do. I was circling the apartment complex. I was getting very worried. … It all happened in a minute, but it felt like it lasted forever. The apartment shook from one side to the other. I didn’t know if it was going to collapse.”
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck at 1:14 p.m. near the city of Puebla, about 75 miles southeast of Mexico City, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Luis Felipe Puente, the country’s civil protection coordinator, said the number of deaths was at least 230 as searchers continue to work desperately to find survivors in the ruins of collapsed structures.
Puente said in a tweet earlier today that more than half the dead were found in Mexico City and the state of Morelos.
In addition to the states of Mexico, Puebla and Morelos, people were also killed in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing up emergency funds, and ordered all hospitals to open their doors to the injured.
Bernardo Mendez Lugo, executive director of americasinmuros.org, was on Álvaro Obregón Avenue in Colonia Roma, a residential district in Mexico City, when the earthquake struck.
“We didn’t expect to get hit with an earthquake of this magnitude,” Mendez Lugo said in Spanish during a phone interview. “There was no way we could’ve seen it coming. The fact that I was in one of the most affected areas in Mexico City did make the quake feel like an eternity. We were on a fifth floor, which in reality it was the seventh, because of the parking floors. The quake felt like it lasted forever. We exited through the stairs to the street. There were a lot of people running with shovels and axes toward the collapsed buildings in the area.”
He told The Rider he estimates about a dozen buildings collapsed in the area.
Mendez Lugo said the mobilization and organization of rescue efforts was achieved more effectively than the 1985 earthquake thanks to social media, cellphone applications and the internet.
“There were no cellphones or internet in 1985,” he said. “That was a fundamental difference that helped authorities and volunteers organize rescue and support efforts in the areas where people were trapped under collapsed buildings.”
At UTRGV, several student organizations are working together to collect donations for victims in Mexico.
Aleyda Meza, president of the International Student Organization at UTRGV, said her club, along with Hack and Make, the Society For Human Resource Management, the American Marketing Association, the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Volunteers Around The World, the RGV German Club and the Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business, will accept donations.
Items may be dropped off in donation boxes located in the Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship office, Sabal Hall, Main Tower’s International Admission Office, the Life and Health Sciences Building and El Comedor on the Brownsville campus.
The Casa Bella Clubhouse in Brownsville will also accept donations.
In Edinburg, items will be collected in the Newman Catholic Student Center, located at 1615 W. Kuhn St.
Rodríguez, who resides in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, said this is the time for everyone to come together and show their support.
“I encourage everyone to help and show their support,” she said. “Just like it’s happening here in Mexico City, Puebla and Morelos, it can happen anywhere. Someday, God forbid, this could happen to us. I think there will be a lot of people helping us, so … two is better than one. That will be my message.”
