A 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked Mexico’s central Pacific coast on Monday, killing at least one person and triggering a seismic alarm in the stricken capital in memory of two previous devastating earthquakes. There were at least some early reports of damage to buildings from the earthquake, which Hit 1:05pm local time, According to the US Geological Surveywhich initially estimated its volume at 7.5.
It added that the epicenter was 23 miles southeast of Aquila, near the borders of the states of Colima and Michoacan, at a depth of 9.4 miles.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador He said via Twitter that the Secretary of the Navy told him that one person was killed in the coastal city of Manzanillo, Colima, when a wall collapsed in a mall.
And in Colcumen, Michoacan, near the epicenter, buildings were damaged, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. “It started slowly and then it was really strong and it went on and on until it started going down,” said 16-year-old Carla Cardenas, a Colcumen resident. She walked out of her family’s hotel and waited with the neighbours. She said the hotel and some homes along the street had cracks in the walls and parts of the facades and ceilings. “In the hotel, the parking area roof rebounded and fell to the floor, and cracks were made in the walls on the second floor,” she said. She said the town’s hospital was badly damaged, but she had not yet heard of anyone being injured.
Mexico’s National Civil Defense Agency said that based on historical data for Mexico’s tsunami waves, differences of up to 32 inches could have occurred in coastal water levels near the epicenter. US Tsunami Warning Center He said Dangerous tsunamis were possible for coasts located 186 miles from the epicenter.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum chirp There were no reports of damage in the capital.
“I had a terrible feeling,” said Karina Suarez, 37, after evacuating the building she lives in in the city, according to AFP.
Reuters/Henry Romero
The earthquake alerts came less than an hour after earthquake warnings were triggered in a nationwide earthquake simulation marking major earthquakes that occurred on the same date in 1985 and 2017.
In the 1985 earthquake, more than 10,000 people were killed and hundreds of buildings destroyed.
“It’s that date, there’s something about the 19th,” Ernesto Lanzeta, a Mexico City business owner, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. The nineteenth is a day to be feared.
US Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle said Monday’s quake was a coincidence.
“There is no physical cause or statistical bias toward earthquakes in any particular month in Mexico,” Earl said.
There is no season or month for major earthquakes anywhere in the world, Earle said. But there is something predictable: people seek and sometimes find coincidences that look like patterns. “We knew we were going to get that question as soon as it happened,” Earl said. “Sometimes there are just coincidences.” The earthquake was not related to or caused by previous simulations, nor was it related to a devastating tremor in Taiwan Earl said the day before.
Humberto Garza stood outside a restaurant in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City holding his 3-year-old son. Like many who were wandering outside after the earthquake, Garza said the earthquake alarm sounded so soon after the annual simulation that he wasn’t sure it was real.
“I heard the alarm, but it sounded too far away,” he said.
Outside the city’s environmental ombudsman’s office, dozens of employees waited. Some looked visibly shaken. Electricity was out in parts of the city, including traffic lights, disrupting the capital’s already infamous traffic.