(Mexico City) A second person died Tuesday from the consequences of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that shook western Mexico to the capital on Monday, the anniversary of two previous deadly earthquakes in 1985 and 2017.
Posted at 1:40 p.m.
This second death was recorded in the state of Colima, neighboring Michoacan where the epicenter was located near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, said civil protection.
“A severely injured woman, crushed by a wall that collapsed on her, died” in the port city of Manzanillo, said the head of civil protection Laura Velazquez.
On Monday, also in Manzanillo, a man died when the structure of a shopping center collapsed, authorities said.
Nine people were also injured in the small state of Colima, less than 200 km from Coalcoman, the epicenter of the earthquake recorded at 1:05 p.m. local time.
Colima is the most affected state, with more than 150 homes or other facilities showing varying damage.
“We were lucky because it was an earthquake of considerable intensity,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador commented on Tuesday, lamenting the two deaths.
A total of 692 aftershocks have been recorded through Tuesday morning, the strongest of which at magnitude 5.8.
The tremor was felt less than an hour after millions of people took part in an earthquake prevention exercise organized by the authorities each year to mark the anniversary of the earthquakes of September 19, 1985 and 2017.
On September 19, 2017, a magnitude 7.1 quake killed 369 people. Entire buildings had collapsed in the center of the capital Mexico City.
On September 19, 1985, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake devastated central Mexico City, killing more than 10,000 people.
Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area where the meeting of tectonic plates causes high seismic activity, Mexico lives under the threat of large-scale earthquakes. The capital Mexico is particularly vulnerable in its part built on the old pre-Hispanic lake, covered over the centuries.