In the streets of Mexico City, dozens of people are anxiously awaiting news from relatives who have not yet appeared
Rescue efforts continue in Mexico City, where there is hope of rescuing a girl trapped under the rubble of her school, plunged by the violent earthquake on Tuesday, killing at least 225 people.
Among the ruins of the Rebsamen school, where 21 children and five adults died, rescuers have been able to locate a small live under the rubble by a thermal scanner. So far, 11 children and at least one teacher have been taken alive from the collapsed school.
"We are very, very close to people who could be alive. We are working together with thermal cameras and canine units," says Pamela Diaz, a 34-year-old baker who has been working on the rescue since Tuesday.
Of the total deaths, 94 were from Mexico City, 71 from Morelos, 43 from Puebla, 12 from Estado de México, 4 from Guerrero, and 1 from Oaxaca.
In the streets of Mexico City dozens of people wait in the midst of anguish for news of their relatives who have not yet appeared. In the Condesa neighborhood, Karen Guzman is sitting on a bench, with her back to one of the buildings collapsed because she can not stand the rescue work of about 30 people who could be living under the rubble.
At one side, there are two light posts where the lists of rescued persons were placed and updated from time to time, but they do not include the name of his brother Juan Antonio Guzman, 43, an accountant who was in the last of the four floors of the office building. "My mom is looking for him in hospitals because we do not trust those lists. Sometimes I think nobody knows anything," he says in a sway of hopelessness and fury. "It has to be alive, I know they're going to take it out," he adds with just a hint of voice.
Very close to her, Marta Laura Hernandez, 39, awaits news of the father of her three children, 6, 7 and 13 years old. "One of his comrades told me that he did not get out and that he was trapped along with 50 or 60 other people, he also told me that the building collapsed almost at the beginning of the earthquake, it was sudden", he says before breaking into tears.
While relatives come and go from hospitals, social networks organize brigades of volunteers with bicycles, motorcycles and on foot who ask for donations: machinery to remove large pieces of cement and medicines ranging from painkillers to morphine and oxygen.
In Mexico City, 39 buildings collapsed, according to Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera, who said that except for about five where it was determined that there are no people trapped, the rescue efforts are maintained.
The mayor stressed that at least 40 people were rescued alive from two of the collapsed buildings and that some 600 buildings will be checked to verify the state of their structures.
After the earthquake of Tuesday of 7.1 degrees of magnitude, have been registered numerous aftershocks. "If they do not feel safe, the recommendation is not to stay in the house," warned Carlos Valdés, director of the National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred).
Classes were suspended until further notice while companies and public offices work with essential staff.
Electric power was almost completely restored in Mexico City, as well as in the neighboring states of Morelos and Puebla, where rescue work is also continuing.
At the end of the general audience this Wednesday at the Vatican, Pope Francis raised a prayer for the Mexicans. "In this moment of pain I want to express my closeness and prayer to all the beloved Mexican po[CENSORED]tion," Francisco said in Spanish.
The European Union also expressed its condolences and offered emergency aid.
Meanwhile, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray unexpectedly took the floor at the UN General Assembly Wednesday to report that international aid was on the way. Chile and El Salvador sent the first contingents of first responders.
Mexico is located between five tectonic plates whose movements make it among the countries with the most seismic activity in the world.
On September 7, an earthquake of 8.1, the strongest in a century in Mexico, caused 96 deaths and more than 200 injured in the south of the country, especially in the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas.