Tag Archives: Quake

After massive quakes, millions in Mexico turn to early warning app

After massive quakes, millions in Mexico turn to early warning app

By Sheky Espejo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Since two massive earthquakes hit Mexico in September, claiming more than 460 lives, an early warning start-up called SkyAlert has doubled its users to 5.8 million, making it one of the country’s most downloaded apps.

SkyAlert has also found a market selling alarms to small businesses in the capital, said its co-founder and director Alvaro Velasco. And it is looking to expand to Latin America, mainly Colombia, Peru and Chile, which lack an official alerting system despite frequent quakes in those countries.

Velasco said that he and SkyAlert co-founder Alejandro Cantú are talking to investors from Mexico and elsewhere about raising 100 million pesos ($5.35 million) in capitalization in 2018.

He said the surge in users after the most recent deadly quake in Mexico City had heightened the interest of existing investors including U.S.-based American Messaging and attracted interest from two Mexico-based private equity funds.

American Messaging did not respond to requests to comment on any potential new investment.

Velasco said SkyAlert was in talks with those funds and existing investors to inject around 20 million pesos (1.05 million dollars) into SkyAlert.

Still, finding a sustainable business model for the quake monitoring app has been a challenge partly because recent regulation in Mexico City has limited SkyAlert’s ability to access funds through public financing.

MAKING A PROFIT NOT EASY

Shomit Ghose at Onset Ventures, a U.S. private equity company with experience in software start-ups, said quake apps have struggled to get adequate financing because of the lack of a clear path to profits.

“If the business model is B2B where the earthquake early-warning is sent to companies, or railways, or hospitals, or high-buildings then perhaps a strong B2B case can be made for start-up investment,” Ghose said.

SkyAlert’s predicament echoes that of companies seeking funding to develop earthquake alert apps in the United States. Seismic activity is hard to monetize without government support.

It competes with its former partner, Mexico’s official alerting system run by government-funded non profit CIRES, which was created after an earthquake in 1985 killed thousands in the country.

One of the world’s few widely deployed seismic alarms, CIRES runs a network of sirens positioned around Mexico City that warn of a coming quake. SkyAlert mainly warns people through a mobile app.

Both sell quake warning systems, but a 2016 regulatory reform requires public buildings in Mexico City to purchase alarm systems from CIRES, limiting SkyAlert’s public financing.

SkyAlert initially replicated CIRES’ alerts, but in 2015 it decided to deploy its own detection sensors to increase coverage with greater accuracy, Velasco said.

“After a few false alerts from CIRES that affected SkyAlert’s credibility, we decided to invest in our own technology,” he said.

SkyAlert also is exploring ways to monetize its free app.

Currently, it sells a “premium” version for $4 a year that allows users to personalize alerts. However, Mexico has an average per capita income of $8,200, and the company said only around 4 percent of users pay for it.

Velasco said SkyAlert’s revenue is split fairly evenly between those fees and income from selling to businesses.

The newest version of the app allows for paid advertising, but ads would not be visible during a seismic alert.

SkyAlert, founded in 2011, has few peers, but one similar service in Japan is called YureKuru Call, which relies on government seismic data. YureKuru has received some government funding on an ad-hoc basis, but like SkyAlert is mostly funded by fees, said Rina Suzuki, an official at RC Solution Co., the Tokyo-based firm that developed YureKuru.

Detection technologies are evolving and they are all perfectible, Jennifer Strauss, external relations officer at the Berkeley Seismology Lab told Reuters.

“In the end, what matters is how effective they are at alerting people to save lives,” said Strauss.

(Additional reporting by Christine Murray in Mexico City and Minami Funakoshi in Tokyo; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Diane Craft)

California prepares for the ‘big one’ with earthquake drill

California prepares for the 'big one' with earthquake drill

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Millions of Californians were due on Thursday to simultaneously drop to the floor, clamber under tables and cover their heads for a minute or two of imagined seismic turmoil during the latest annual “Great ShakeOut” earthquake drill.

The event, first held nine years ago in the Los Angeles area, was organized by scientists and emergency officials as part of a campaign to prepare the region’s inhabitants for a catastrophic quake that experts say is inevitable and long overdue.

The exercise has since expanded to encompass all of California and most other states, as well as some other countries, including Canada and Japan. In many places, entire school districts, colleges, workplaces and municipalities have registered to take part.

In keeping with the drill’s quake-survival message, participants are urged to “drop, cover and hold” – meaning get down on hands and knees, cover their heads and necks under a sturdy piece of furniture and hang on until the hypothetical shaking stops.

To help participants get into the mood, organizers have even prepared audio recordings of quake-rumbling sounds that can be downloaded, with or without narration, and played during the drill.

Such rehearsals are especially important in regions such as Southern California, where “it’s not a matter of if but when that catastrophic earthquake will strike,” said Ken Kondo, spokesman for Los Angeles County’s emergency management office.

One of the larger gatherings planned is to be held at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park near downtown Los Angeles.

Following the drill, the city fire department, American Red Cross, police and other agencies will stage a full-scale earthquake-response exercise, setting up a medical triage area, emergency shelters and mass-feeding operation, Kondo said.

That drill is based on the premise of a magnitude 7.8 quake striking the southern end of the San Andreas Fault, a subterranean chasm between two massive plates of the Earth’s crust that extends hundreds of miles across California.

The scenario was devised by geophysicists and engineers who envisioned a calamity that would leave 1,800 people dead, 50,000 injured and 250,000 homeless while severing highways, power lines, pipelines, railroads, communications networks and aqueducts, and toppling some 1,500 buildings.

As of late Wednesday, nearly 53 million participants were registered for ShakeOut drills worldwide, including more than 10.2 million in California, organizers said.

The exercise is set to begin at 10:19 a.m. local time, corresponding with the date of the event.

A rupture of the San Andreas Fault in northern California caused the massive quake that laid waste to San Francisco in 1906. The last “big one” to strike south of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles was 300 years ago. The average interval between such quakes in that region is just 150 years, experts say.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Magnitude 5.4 quake rumbles southern Mexico, no reports of damage

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A 5.4 magnitude quake struck southern Mexico on Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

It was not immediately clear if the tremor was an aftershock from a powerful series of quakes last month that destroyed buildings in Mexico City and killed nearly 500 people.

The epicenter of Friday’s tremor was just off the coast of Oaxaca state, in Mexico’s southwest, and it struck at a depth of 59.5 kilometers (37 miles), according to the USGS.

An 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck Oaxaca on Sept. 7 near the town of Juchitan, flattening thousands of buildings in the humid market town.

Fausto Lugo, Mexico City’s emergency services chief, said on local television that Friday’s earthquake was felt lightly in the capital, but there were no reports of damages.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Weak columns, extra floors led to Mexico school collapse, experts say

People put floral wreaths for the students of the Enrique Rebsamen school after an earthquake in Mexico city, Mexico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Michael O’Boyle and Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A Mexico City school that collapsed in a powerful earthquake last week killing 19 children buckled under the heavy weight of floors added over the years with scant steel support, according to experts and witnesses.

The tragedy at the privately owned Enrique Rebsamen school in southern Mexico City, in which seven adults also died, has become a symbol of the devastation inflicted by the country’s 7.1 magnitude quake, the worst in a generation. At least 355 people died in the capital and surrounding states.

“The building was badly designed, poorly calculated and poorly constructed,” said Alfredo Perez, a 52-year old civil engineer who dashed to the school shortly after the Sept. 19 quake to help rescue efforts. “The reinforced concrete doesn’t comply with specifications in construction regulations.”

Alongside rescue workers, Perez said, he pulled bodies from the rubble. Then he sat in one of the undamaged classrooms and drew plans detailing potential design failures in the collapsed building.

Reuters showed those plans to six structural engineers along with Reuters’ photos of the ruined structure. They independently concluded that the structure’s columns lacked sufficient steel rebar to support all four floors and prevent them from snapping in such a powerful earthquake.

While the quantity of steel required under Mexico’s stringent post-1985 building code varies depending on the size of structure, all six engineers said the building’s columns were built with too little steel to withstand strong quakes.

Perez and another engineer specified that columns appeared to have less than half the required amount of steel reinforcement. They base their view on the number of vertical and horizontal steel rebar rods in the columns, which are visible in Reuters photos along with the measurements in Perez’s plans.

“It comes down to the lack of steel,” said Troy Morgan, a New York-based senior managing engineer at Exponent, an engineering consulting firm.

Since a 1985 quake toppled hundreds of buildings in Mexico City, planning officials developed a strict building code at the forefront of international standards for quake-proofing that raised the proportion of required steel reinforcement.

Reuters was unable to locate or contact the school’s owner and principal, Monica Garcia. Teachers, current and former students and their families all said she had been at the premises during the quake and survived.

Reuters was unable to identify the builder. A spokesman for the Tlalpan district where the school was located said property owners are not required to notify authorities of the builders or architects they used for modifications. The spokesman said the district had no record of the builder that worked on the new floors at the school. People living by the school said they did not know who had done the work.

The Mexico City urban development department did not respond to requests for comment on whether the inspectors who certified the school had proper licenses or any history of complaints.

Although the school was founded in 1983, before the new code took effect, the administrative building that buckled was expanded from two to four floors over the last decade or so, neighbors and former students said.

Photos published by Google Maps show the building had four floors as of 2009 with an expansion of the top floor by 2014 and a further expansion in 2016.

“It definitely did not comply with the post-1985 code,” said Eduardo Miranda, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford who collected statistics on buildings that collapsed in Mexico’s 1985 earthquake, citing the code, photos and plans.

Construction permits released by local authorities dated in 1983 and 1984 authorized a four story structure at the school site. The top two floors were added much later, meaning the existing structure should have been brought up to modern standards, according to Mexico City’s construction code.

The engineers who studied the photos and plans said the existing building had not been visibly reinforced.

Mexican prosecutors said they had opened a probe into potential criminal responsibility of the owner and private inspectors for the collapse. Prosecutors also said they had opened an investigation in February into whether the school had the proper zoning permits to operate.

Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection department, told Reuters that local officials, the construction company and the owner of the property could all be held accountable if any violations were discovered.

One inspector, Juan Apolinar Torales Iniesta, gave the buildings its most recent safety certificate in June according to documents filed with the local government, which released them publicly.

Torales did not respond to requests for comment sent to telephone numbers and emails listed in a government database. At Torales’ government-registered address, a man refused to identify himself and said the registered architectural engineer did not live there.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Tlalpan district mayor, filed a criminal complaint on Thursday accusing two prior attorneys for the district Alejandro Zepeda and Miguel Angel Guerrero of maliciously failing to enforce the law after discovering unpermitted construction between 2010 and 2014 on the upper floors.

“What we’ve found is truly outrageous,” she said, referring to a document dated Nov. 8, 2013 by the Tlalpan public works department that described demolition work on the upper floors causing structural damage to the building. Despite that document, which she made public and was reviewed by Reuters, the school was allowed to keep operating with a small fine, Sheinbaum said

Guerrero did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent to his email address. Zepeda did not respond to a message sent to his Facebook account.

‘LACK OF STEEL’

All six engineers said the addition of two floors dangerously loaded down the building, given its lack of steel support.

“If it was kept at two levels, it would have not collapsed…it would not have caused so many deaths,” said Casey Hemmatyar, managing director at Pacific Structural and Forensic Engineers Group, a consultancy firm in Los Angeles.

Based on the position of the ruins, the school lurched as much as 18 feet (5.5 m) towards the street before collapsing, a sign of weak columns, said Geoffrey Hichborn, chief engineer at Building Forensics International, a concrete consulting firm in Anaheim, California.

Mexico City’s government has not completed its own analysis, and Sheinbaum said the rubble would be left in place for engineers to investigate.

Documents published by Sheinbaum on Tlalpan district’s website, including building inspection reports and closure orders from the district’s attorneys, show that officials ordered fourth-floor construction to be halted at several points between 2010 and 2014 because it lacked proper permits.

Sheinbaum’s complaint filed Thursday refers to these documents and others filed with the district to say the irregularities were never resolved.

“No evidence or documents exist that allow the conclusion that these irregularities were corrected,” the complaint said. Reuters was unable to independently confirm whether or not corrective measures were taken.

(Additional reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher, Anthony Esposito and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Frank Jack Daniel)

Cuts hurt Mexico quake response, outlook ahead of 2018 vote

Members of rescue teams work at a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 28, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Spending cuts and a failure by Mexico’s president to upgrade an earthquake alert system hurt life-saving prevention programs and amplified recovery costs after two major temblors this month, current and former government officials said.

Although President Enrique Pena Nieto is eager to show a prompt and competent response to the earthquakes, which killed more than 430 people, the budget of recovery agencies is threadbare due to cost-cutting by his administration.

Pena Nieto, an unpopular centrist struggling to get a successor from his party or an ally elected president next July, on Wednesday acknowledged the problem, urging lawmakers to boost funding in the 2018 budget.

“The reconstruction needs more resources,” he said.

The government has slashed disaster budgets by as much as 50 percent in recent years, part of a broader cost-cutting effort to make up for shortfalls caused by a drop in oil revenues, which finance about 20 percent of Mexico’s federal budget.

The 2017 budget alone reduced funding for Mexico’s various disaster and civil protection efforts by 25 percent, from about 8.6 billion pesos ($475 million) in 2016 to 6.4 billion pesos.

In a statement, Pena Nieto’s office defended its performance and said cutbacks could not be attributed solely to the presidency. While the executive branch proposes the budget, the spending plan is ultimately approved by Congress.

“Despite the budget restrictions, the civil protection system has strengthened in recent years,” the president’s office said in a statement.

The cuts last year prompted lawmakers to warn in a report that “the state is relinquishing its responsibilities to its population, given inevitable and unknowable disaster risks.”

Now, after the two big quakes, and damage from hurricanes before that, Mexico is hard-pressed to find ways to rebuild. “The reconstruction fund has zero pesos,” Luis Felipe Puente, the government’s emergency services chief, said in an interview.

The president’s office said funding had not hindered the start of reconstruction, saying insurance and a disaster bond augmented federal coffers.

For those who work in readiness efforts, however, the current problem is a clear example of what happens when governments skimp on prevention measures, from risk assessments to early warning systems for quakes, volcanic activity and other disasters.

According to the United Nations, every dollar spent on preparedness saves about seven dollars in response. In 2014, Mexico’s federal auditor chastised the government for spending more on reconstruction than on preparing for disasters.

“We should be investing more in prevention,” said Enrique Guevara, a former head of Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention, or CENAPRED. “Firstly because you save lives, and secondly you save money.”

“OLYMPIC SILENCE”

At CENAPRED, founded in the wake of a massive 1985 quake that killed thousands, expenditure fell by 20 percent between 2012 and 2016, hurting the upkeep of a national risk atlas and lowering morale at the institution, according to a senior official there who requested anonymity to speak frankly.

The government also slashed 2017 budgets for two government funds that finance disaster efforts, official data shows.

This year’s budget for FOPREDEN, a fund for the prevention of natural disasters, was cut by 50 percent. FONDEN, a larger fund for disaster relief, lost a quarter of its budget, according to the government spending plan.

In addition to reducing funds for the federal government’s own efforts, the president has turned down or ignored financing requests at another program officials said could help lower disaster tolls.

Unlike the previous administration of former President Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto has not invested in a widely praised earthquake alert system credited with saving lives since it was implemented in Mexico City in 1989.

The system, the Center for Seismic Instrumentation and Registry, detects many quakes across the country, sounding a warning that gives the 20 million residents of greater Mexico City crucial time to evacuate buildings before some tremors arrive.

Funded mostly by the city government, and currently operating on less than 30 million pesos per year, the system needs more monitors to detect even more temblors, like the 7.1 quake on Sept. 19.

Better detection, the system’s director said, could have given Mexico City residents up to 5 seconds more warning that day. As it happened, many locals said they heard the alarm only once the ground began shaking.

But repeated requests to Pena Nieto and various federal agencies for additional funding in recent years were met with “Olympic silence,” said Juan Manuel Espinosa, the director.

In its statement, the president’s office said the federal government had no obligation to fund the alarm system. It noted a shortfall in past financing for the system by the state of Oaxaca, which is a contractual partner with the Mexico City government in its financing.

“NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING”

For Pena Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, the cutbacks could create problems at the ballot box, especially among a Mexican electorate that is increasingly ready for change after years of corruption and drug violence.

Although Pena Nieto cannot stand for reelection, the PRI ranks third in current projections for the July vote.

Meanwhile, rivals like leftist frontrunner and former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are poised to take advantage of any missteps.

“Whoever gets this wrong will feel the effects in the election,” said Gustavo Mohar, a former Mexican intelligence official who now runs a strategic risk consultancy.

For the recovery to succeed, the government must find additional sources of financing. Estimates of the cost range from about $2 billion, according to the government, to as much as $4 billion, a calculation by investment bank Nomura.

Puente, the emergency services chief, said the finance ministry may receive funding from catastrophe bonds, issued by the World Bank in August, that could provide Mexico with up to $360 million in protection from certain quakes and storms.

But aside from housing the homeless and rebuilding, the government must also ensure it spends disaster funds wisely and transparently – a notoriously tricky task, particularly for an administration that many Mexicans consider corrupt.

In the hard-hit capital, where at least 206 people died, volunteers helping with recovery work this week said they distrust the government’s ability to provide effective relief.

“There is no money for anything,” said Beatriz Navarrete, a 21-year-old medical student manning a donations tent. “If the government was really spending money, we wouldn’t be here, begging for medicine.”

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Additional reporting by Dan Trotta. Editing by Paulo Prada.)

Hope evaporating, a grim wait for relatives after Mexico quake

Hope evaporating, a grim wait for relatives after Mexico quake

By Ana Isabel Martinez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Relatives waiting on Wednesday outside an office block that collapsed last week in Mexico City’s earthquake have resigned themselves to the likelihood that their loved ones did not survive, as a stench of death seeped from the rubble.

Soldiers, firefighters and volunteers have worked day and night since the Sept. 19 quake to find those trapped. In the past few days the search has narrowed to a handful of buildings. The focus is on the office block in the chic Roma district, where over 30 people are still missing.

Authorities say 337 people have been confirmed dead so far in the 7.1 magnitude quake, Mexico’s most deadly in a generation.

“Sadly, we have to be realistic, what we want are our relatives’ bodies at the very least,” said Martin Estrada, 51, whose son is believed to buried under the building.

Like others waiting for news of their relatives, Estrada was critical of a lack of information from authorities. He said the rescue had been too slow to save his son.

One rescue worker at the site said a putrid smell pervading the air was evidence bodies were still in the building.

The earthquake, and one a few days earlier that killed around 100 people, have become political issues for the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, stretched to capacity by the disasters and coming under increasing criticism.

“We blame the government for their deaths,” Estrada said.

The earthquakes caused $2 billion in damage to schools, housing and heritage sites including churches, ministers said on Wednesday. Private estimates range from $2 billion to $8 billion.

Pena Nieto said funds set aside for disaster recovery “were not infinite” and warned financing would have to be reassigned in the 2018 budget, which is currently under discussion in Congress.

At least 190,000 buildings have been seriously damaged across Mexico by the quakes and storms in recent weeks, Pena Nieto said on Tuesday. A senior official said there was a collapse risk at 1,500 buildings in the capital.

Residents carry their belongings from their homes in the rubble of a collapsed building at Iztapalapa neighbourhood, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Residents carry their belongings from their homes in the rubble of a collapsed building at Iztapalapa neighbourhood, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

SMOKING MOUNTAIN

Earlier in the day, smoke, ash and red-hot rocks belched from the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City, heightening anxiety for many locals, although officials said there was no imminent threat.

Popocatepetl, whose name means “Smoking Mountain” in the native Nahuatl language, showered a village at its base with ash, shook with the force of a 1.8 magnitude earthquake and spewed flaming rocks to distances of up to 1 km (0.62 mile), the National Disaster Prevention Center (Cenapred) said.

The earthquake had its epicenter just a few miles from the volcano and “probably pushed” the volcanic activity, Carlos Valdez, director of Cenapred, told Reuters.

However, eruptions at the volcano have become relatively common since it reactivated 23 years ago.

On a clear day, Popocatepetl looms on the horizon of Mexico City 44 miles (71 km) away, and volcanic ash occasionally blows into the city.

Winds blew the ash on Wednesday towards Ecatzingo, a village under the volcano that suffered damage to its church and dozens of houses in last week’s quake.

(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez, Writing by Frank Jack Daniel, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Mexico in three-day countdown to search for earthquake survivors

Rescue teams remove rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

By Daniel Trotta

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Rescuers are unlikely to find any more survivors of Mexico’s earthquake still buried in the ruins and will cease operations to find them at the end of Thursday, the emergency services chief said.

Tuesday marks one week since the 7.1 magnitude quake struck around lunchtime, killing 331 people, damaging 11,000 homes and leading to a outpouring of civilian volunteers to aid and comfort the victims.

Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection agency, told Reuters that rescuers would continue hand-picking through the debris at four sites until Thursday.

“I can say that at this time it would be unlikely to find someone alive,” Puente said, considering that specially trained dogs have yet to pick up the scent of survivors.

Forty-three people were still missing, including 40 who may have been trapped beneath a collapsed office building in the Roma district of Mexico City, Puente said. One person was believed missing at each of three other sites in the capital.

At the office building, relatives protested overnight, increasingly angry with the slow progress recovering their loved ones and an alleged lack of information.

Asked how much longer search and rescue operations would continue, the official responded, “As of today (Monday), we have agreed to another 72 hours.”

The week began with signs that Mexico was resuming its routine as the streets filled with traffic and more than 44,000 schools in six states reopened.

But in the capital city, only 676 of the more than 8,000 public and private schools resumed classes.

The quake, coming exactly 32 years after a 1985 earthquake killed some 10,000 people, delivered a massive psychological blow that specialists say will take time to overcome.

“The children are in crisis and don’t want to talk. Some kids didn’t even remember their own names,” said Enriqueta Ortuno, 57, a psychotherapist who has been working with victims in the hard-hit Xochimilco district.

Much of the nation’s attention was focused on a fallen school in Mexico City where 19 children and seven adults died. Later on Tuesday, the top official in the municipality where the school was located was due to reveal documents related to the its construction.

That school was one of many buildings that prosecutors will investigate, Puente said. Roughly 10 percent of damaged buildings were constructed after strict building codes were enacted in the wake of the 1985 earthquake.

“The Mexico City mayor and the national government have already ordered judicial investigations to determine who was responsible for new construction that did not meet the requirements,” Puente said from Civil Protection headquarters, where a roomful of technicians monitored seismic activity and tropical storms on an array of screens.

In Mexico City, 187 people died in 38 buildings that collapsed. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said thousands of families who lost their homes in uninhabitable buildings would be offered 3,000 ($170) pesos monthly in temporary rent assistance.

Rescuers pulled 69 people from quake-damaged properties, of whom 37 were still in the hospital as of Monday, 11 of them in grave condition, Puente said.

Demolitions of buildings that are beyond repair could begin as soon as Tuesday, he said.

Responders from 18 countries came to Mexico to help, but with the search for survivors down to four sites most of them had gone home, with Americans and Israelis among the few to remain, Puente said. The Japanese contingent left on Monday.

International aid was now focused on humanitarian needs, Puente said, with China providing large numbers of beds, tents and kitchen and bathroom fixtures for temporary shelters for the homeless.

But the biggest contributions came from Mexicans themselves, who responded with so much food, supplies and volunteer work that officials had difficulty moving largesse from wealthy and accessible neighborhoods to the most needy.

Puente recognized some “deficiencies” in coordinating relief efforts, but overall, he said, “The government today is an international benchmark.”

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Bill Trott)

In Mexico, frantic rescuers keep up search for quake survivors

In Mexico, frantic rescuers keep up search for quake survivors

By Julia Love and Alexandra Alper

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – An army of trained rescuers and scores of volunteers carefully combed through the rubble of Mexico’s most deadly earthquake in decades on Saturday, hoping against diminishing odds to pull more survivors out nearly four days after the disaster struck.

While rescue efforts at the sites of some collapsed buildings had been called off, at others sweat-drenched workers kept up a frenzied pace.

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake destroyed 52 buildings in the sprawling Mexican capital early afternoon on Tuesday, leaving thousands homeless and close to 300 people dead nationwide.

Apartment buildings, offices, a school and a textile factory were among the structures flattened.

Maria Isela Sandoval waited anxiously outside a collapsed office building in the trendy Roma neighborhood for news of her missing nephew and possibly other co-workers trapped somewhere under the ruins.

She said her nephew worked on the fourth floor of the building, and that officials have told her they believe survivors could be trapped in a capsule within the twisted steel and chunks of concrete.

“We pray to God they are alive, that they can hold on,” the 38-year-old housewife said, her eyes red with exhaustion as she has not slept in days.

Rescue dog Frida looks on while working after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Rescue dog Frida looks on while working after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

U.S. rescue workers went to work Friday in the collapsed office building, looking for six people who were still missing.

Mexican soldiers and volunteers, supported by teams from as far away as Israel and Japan, have so far rescued at least 60 people from the ruins in Mexico City and surrounding towns.

After several days of searching, rescuers were finding more corpses than survivors, and frustration was mounting especially as the government’s efforts were largely panned.

Across the mega city of more than 20 million people, many whose homes had become uninhabitable sought a place to call home, raising the specter of a housing shortage.

Officials said there could be some 20,000 badly damaged homes in the adjacent states of Morelos and Puebla.

Julia Juarez, 56, sat in a park where the homeless set up tents. “All the help we have received is from the civilian population. The government has not sent anything at all,” she said. “No food, no clothes, no water, not even an Alka-Seltzer,” she said, referring to the pain relieving medication.

Tuesday’s massive quake hit on the anniversary of the deadly 1985 tremor that by some estimates killed as many as 10,000 people and destroying scores of older buildings in the Mexican capital.

Despite the shrinking odds that more survivors would be pulled out from huge piles of debris, workers at many sites continued to dig on the faintest chance at success.

At the same collapsed Roma office building, volunteer coordinator Angel Ortiz, a 36-year-old taxi driver, pointed to the results of heat-sensing detectors that appeared to show signs of life somewhere underneath the rubble.

“There are still people alive down there,” he said.

Like many traumatized but determined rescue workers, Ortiz described the past few days as an emotional roller-coaster, feeling encouraged one moment but depressed the next.

“For me, it’s really satisfying to be here even though it’s hard to explain,” he said. “There’s so much emotion and anxiety.”

(Reporting by Julia Love and Alexandra Alper; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

6.2 Earthquake shakes Mexico, rescue efforts suspended

6.2 Earthquake shakes Mexico, rescue efforts suspended

By Noe Torres

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook southern Mexico on Saturday and spread alarm in the capital, where rescuers temporarily suspended a search for survivors of a bigger tremor earlier this week out of fear of further building collapses.

The United States Geological Survey said the new quake was relatively shallow with an epicenter near Juchitan, a tropical region of Oaxaca state hard hit by another major earthquake on Sept 7.

Already shaken by the two recent earthquakes that have killed at least 384 people in Mexico this month, thousands of people ran out onto the streets again in Oaxaca and Mexico City, many in pajamas, when seismic alarms sounded before the new tremor was felt shortly before 8 a.m. (1300 GMT).

“I heard the alarm and ran downstairs with my family,” said Sergio Cedillo, 49, who was watching rescuers’ efforts to find survivors from Tuesday’s quake when the alarm sounded. A smaller earthquake was felt in Oaxaca at 8:24 a.m. (1324 GMT)

In a shelter housing those who have lost their homes in the quakes, people stood in a circle and prayed after the alarm sounded on Saturday.

Local media reports said a bridge collapsed near Juchitan on Saturday, after suffering damage in the earlier quakes.

The tremors were mild in Mexico City. No new damage was immediately reported, but to keep workers safe, rescue efforts were suspended in areas affected by Tuesday’s quake, Luis Felipe Puente, the head of Mexico’s civil protection agency said.

Rescue workers in hard hats stood around at some rescue sites awaiting further instructions.

“We have to be very careful with the damaged buildings, because there is a risk of collapse,” Puente told TV network Azteca.

When Tuesday’s 7.1 magnitude quake hit, Mexico was already reeling from the Sept. 7 earthquake that killed at least 98 people and was the strongest in the country in 85 years.

A Mexican soldier and his dog search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

A Mexican soldier and his dog search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

RESCUE EFFORTS

At least 52 buildings were brought to the ground by Tuesday’s earthquake and an army of trained rescuers and scores of volunteers have been frantically removing rubble in a day and night search for survivors.

Officials said there could be some 20,000 badly damaged homes in the adjacent states of Morelos and Puebla.

Mexican volunteers, professionals and soldiers backed by teams from countries as far away as Japan have so far saved 60 people from the rubble but nobody has been found alive in the past 24 hours. The quake killed at least 296 people.

Apartment buildings, offices, a school and a textile factory were among the structures flattened, leaving thousands homeless.

After several days of searching, rescuers had been finding more corpses than survivors before labors were suspended, and frustration was mounting at what some said were insufficient efforts by the government to save people and hand out aid.

Tuesday’s massive quake hit on the anniversary of the deadly 1985 tremor that by some estimates killed as many as 10,000 people and destroyed scores of older buildings in the Mexican capital.

Mexico is better prepared to deal with the aftermath of earthquakes nowadays, helped by disaster planning, civic groups, a stringent building code and communication technology.

Despite the shrinking odds that more survivors would be pulled out from huge piles of debris, workers at many sites said they would not give up if there was the faintest chance at success.

At a collapsed office building in the trendy Roma district, volunteer coordinator Angel Ortiz, a 36-year-old taxi driver, pointed to the results of heat-sensing detectors that appeared to show signs of life somewhere underneath the rubble.

“There are still people alive down there,” he said.

People sit next to a collapsed building as they wait for news of their loved ones after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

People sit next to a collapsed building as they wait for news of their loved ones after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

(Reporting by Julia Love and Alexandra Alper; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Franklin Paul)

Mexico quake’s homeless gather in tent village, toll reaches 286

People sit in the bleachers of a stadium at a shelter set up by the army after an earthquake, in Jojutla de Juarez, Mexico September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By David Alire Garcia

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Desperate residents left homeless by Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in a generation gathered in a tent village in the south of the capital on Friday, as the death toll climbed to 286 and signs of exhaustion gripped rescuers three days after the tremor.

Tuesday’s 7.1 magnitude quake leveled some 52 buildings in the sprawling Mexican capital, sparking a frenzied hunt for survivors and prompting political parties to outdo each other with pledges of donations to the rescue efforts ahead of next year’s election.

Across the city of 20 million people, the extent of damage from the quake was becoming apparent, with many people whose dwellings had become uninhabitable seeking somewhere to call home, raising the risk of a housing shortage in coming weeks.

Despite dimming hopes of finding more survivors, President Enrique Pena Nieto insisted rescue operations would continue.

Local media reported that military officials pulled two people from the wreckage of a textile factory in the central Colonia Obrera neighborhood of the capital late on Thursday, though it was not immediately clear if they survived.

In the Girasoles complex in the south of the city, officials cordoned off large areas of the development after two of its roughly 30 apartment buildings collapsed. A handwritten sign across the street listed 14 people said to have died there.

Anguished residents, who were given a series of 20-minute blocks of time to collect belongings from their apartments, feared their homes could be turned to rubble once inspectors have determined which buildings are safe and which may need to be demolished if they are a risk to public safety.

“The building is very, very damaged. It moves. Everything moves,” said Vladimir Estrada, a 39-year-old musical radio programmer, returning from a rushed trip to his fifth floor apartment with plastic bags stuffed with his belongings.

“Nobody here has insurance. Some have family members who can help them but others don’t. Everything is in doubt.”

Several removal vans were laden with mattresses and furniture as those who were able to leave packed up and did so.

But, with few places to go and concern for their largely uninsured properties, many chose to camp out, making the most of allotted windows of time to extricate their possessions. Others slept in their cars.

Emergency services worker Ana Karen Almanza was helping coordinate the arrival of donated supplies in the park, where about a dozen tarp awnings had been erected. She said there was no official involvement in the tent village emerging around her.

“It’s the residents, the neighbors,” she said. “Lots of them don’t have anywhere to live.”

A man looks at the remains of his home after an earthquake in Jojutla de Juarez, Mexico September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

A man looks at the remains of his home after an earthquake in Jojutla de Juarez, Mexico September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

DISCONTENT

Tuesday’s massive quake struck on the anniversary of the deadly 1985 tremor that killed some 5,000 people in Mexico City, spooking many residents. As the shock began to subside, exhaustion crept in, along with growing discontent and swirling speculation.

Late on Thursday, Mexico’s Navy apologized for communicating incorrect information in the story a fictitious schoolgirl, supposedly trapped under a collapsed school in Mexico City.

The tale of the girl, dubbed Frida Sofia by local media, had captivated a devastated nation, and the high-profile televised blunder led to anger.

Officials also sought to quash rumors that the military would be bulldozing razed buildings deemed unlikely to harbor survivors. Across the city, thousands of rescue workers and special teams using sniffer dogs continued to comb the wreckage of buildings for survivors.

With signs of tensions bubbling under the surface, the country’s deeply unpopular political class strove to shine.

Disaster relief is sensitive for politicians in Mexico after the government’s widely panned response to the 1985 quake caused upheaval, which some credited with weakening the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

In a statement, the PRI said it would be donating 258 million pesos ($14.42 million), or 25 percent of its annual federal funding, to help those afflicted.

Meanwhile, the national human rights commission proposed changing the Mexican constitution to divert about 30 percent of political parties’ funding to a federal disaster fund.

Calls for political penny-pinching gained momentum on social media following a powerful quake two weeks ago that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country.

After that temblor, current leftist presidential frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador suggested donating 20 percent of his party’s federal campaign funds for victims.

On Thursday, though, after news of the PRI plans broke, Lopez Obrador upped the ante, proposing donating 50 percent of his National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party’s 2018 federal funding to support victims.

Lorenzo Cordova, the head of the national electoral institute, said in a video posted to Twitter the body had no problem with parties choosing to divert funds to the needy.

The full scale of damage has not been officially calculated.

Citigroup’s Mexican unit Citibanamex told clients it was lowering its 2017 economic growth forecast to 1.9 percent from 2.0 percent due to the earthquake.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Jeremy Gaunt and Bernadette Baum)