Powerful earthquake strikes Mexico

At least 19 people were killed when a strong earthquake shook west-central Mexico sending panicked residents spilling into the streets of major cities and knocking out power to many areas, officials said today.

The first estimate from Mexico’s national seismological service put the quake’s magnitude at 7.6 on the Richter Scale. The agency said it struck at 8.07pm local time yesterday (2.07am Irish time today) in Colima, a small state which includes the port city of Manzanillo, 300 miles west of Mexico City.

Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the US Geological Survey (USGS), said scientists there calculated the magnitude at 7.8.

“There are general reports of damage from the states of Colima, Michoacan and Jalisco,” Mr Kinerney said. “Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage.”

Colima Governor Fernando Moreno Pena said 19 people were killed in the quake, nine in the capital city of Colima and 10 others elsewhere in his state.

It was difficult to communicate with all of Colima by telephone, partly due to overloaded lines, but Melchor Usua Quiroz, head of Colima’s civil defence authorities, told the government news agency Notimex that the quake damaged homes and businesses and briefly left several people trapped in elevators across Colima.

In Guadalajara, the capital of neighbouring Jalisco state and Mexico’s second-largest city, doctors treated dozens of people for panic. There were no reports of physical injuries.

State civil defence officials said that a hotel and several houses were damaged but there were no reports of massive damage even close to the epicentre.

“In the state of Jalisco we do not have reports of major damage and we do not have victims,” GoveRnor Francisco Ramirez Acuna told a local television station.

President Vicente Fox ordered the military to search for damage in the region, which includes remote villages, and to offer aid to those affected.

But the president’s office said an early inspection by the Mexican Navy found only power outages.

In Mexico City, people rushed into the streets, many of them barefoot or wrapped in blankets against the chill.

Police cars drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City with sirens flashing, asking people over loudspeakers: “Is everything OK?”

“I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared,” said Victor Morales, 46, an apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City. “I stayed calm because I trust in God.”

Some earthquakes of magnitude 7 have caused massive damage, but the effect of a quake can be affected by many factors, including its depth and the sort of earth through which it passes as it moves away from the epicentre.

Mexico City is built on a former lake bed in a mountain valley which acts as a sort of amplifier for the motion of quakes.