Relatives mourn victims of Mexico quake

Relatives today mourned at least 25 people who died when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked western and central Mexico.

More than 300 people were injured and thousands of homes were destroyed, mostly in the small Pacific coastal state of Colima.

“I was able to get my sister out, but couldn’t find my mother,” 53-year-old Vincent Rodriguez said.

“She was trapped behind her and by the time I got to her she no longer had a pulse.”

He sat several feet from his mother’s flower-laden coffin, hardly seeing residents scurry past wearing dust masks.

He did not notice German Shepherd dogs sniffing nearby for other victims.

“I did what I could to save her but it was useless,” he said as sympathetic friends and relatives embraced him and paid their respects at an outdoor memorial for his 83-year-old mother Maria.

One of the worst-hit areas was Colima city’s historic centre, where adobe houses built as long as 50 to 100 years ago were pulverised.

On Filameno Medina street, where Rodriguez’s mother lived for more than 75 years, at least three houses crashed to the ground during the quake.

President Vicente Fox toured the devastated neighbourhoods yesterday, promising to help rebuild the houses from newer, stronger materials that would withstand the force of future tremors.

The Tuesday evening quake also rocked Mexico City, 300 miles east of the epicentre, sending frightened residents fleeing into the streets. But damage in the Mexican capital was limited to minor cracks in several buildings.

Mexico’s national seismological service put the quake’s magnitude at 7.6. The US Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.