2 dead after powerful 6.8-magnitude quake strikes Mexico capital

Agencies | Mexico City    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck western Mexico early on Thursday, claiming the life of a woman in Mexico City who fell and hit her head as residents evacuated their homes during the country's second major temblor this week.

The Mexico City government said the woman stumbled on the stairs of her home in the city's central Doctores neighborhood as quake alarms rang out and buildings began to shake.

The city also reported that a man in the south of the capital suffered a fatal heart attack after the quake.

In Mexico City's Roma Sur neighbourhood, alarmed residents ran outdoors in night dresses and pajamas, some wrapped only in blankets. Neighbours comforted each other, holding crying children and pets, as the quake alarm sounded four times.

Shortly after, Mexico City’s Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said via Twitter that there were no immediate reports of damage in the capital. Residents were huddled in streets as seismic alarms blared.

The quake, which the US Geological Survey (USGS) first measured at magnitude 7.0, was weaker and deeper than Monday's temblor, striking at a depth of 20.7 km.

The USGS said that Thursday’s earthquake, like Monday’s, was centred in the western state of Michoacan near the Pacific coast.

Mexico's civil protection authorities and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that there were no initial reports of damages in Michoacan, or any of the surrounding regions.

On Monday, the anniversary of deadly earthquakes in 1985 and 2017, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit western Mexico, killing two in the Pacific port of Manzanillo.