Powerful earthquake hits off Mexican coast

Powerful earthquake hits off Mexican coast







A magnitude-8.1 earthquake has struck off the southern coast of Mexico, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, shaking buildings in the capital city and killing at least five people, officials said.
The earthquake, the strongest to hit Mexico since 1985, struck late on Thursday and people in Mexico City ran out into the streets.
The death toll in the massive earthquake has risen to at least five people, including two children in Tabasco state.
Tabasco Governor Arturo Nunez said that one of the children died when a wall collapsed, and the other was a baby who died in a children's hospital that lost electricity, cutting off the supply to the infant's ventilator.
The other three deaths were in Chiapas state, in San Cristobal de las Casas.
Chiapas Governor Manuel Velasco said that two women died in San Cristobal when a home and a wall collapsed.
He called on people living near the coast to leave their homes as a protective measure.
"There is damage to hospitals that have lost energy," he said.
"Homes, schools and hospitals have been damaged."
Its epicentre was 123km southwest of the town of Pijijiapan, at a depth of 70km, according to USGS.
"The house moved like chewing gum and the light and internet went out momentarily," said Rodrigo Soberanes, who lives near San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, a poor, largely indigenous state popular with tourists.

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Civil Defense in Chiapas said on its Twitter account that its personnel were in the streets aiding people and warned residents to prepare for aftershocks.
The quake was so powerful that frightened residents in Mexico's distant capital city fled apartment buildings, often in their pajamas, and gathered in groups in the street. Sections of Mexico City were without electricity.

Tsunami measured

Tsunami waves have been measured off Mexico's Pacific coast; the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of 1 metre above the tide level were measured off Salina Cruz.
Smaller tsunami waves were observed on the coast or measured by ocean gauges in several other places.
The centre's forecast said Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala could see waves of a meter or less.
No threat was posed to Hawaii and the western and South Pacific.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist in California who works with the US Geological Survey, said such quake was to be expected.
"Off the west coast of Mexico is what's called the subduction zone, the Pacific Plate is moving under the Mexican peninsula," she told Associated Press news agency.
"It's a very flat fault, so it's a place that has big earthquakes relatively often because of that."
"There's likely to be a small tsunami going to the southwest. It's not going to be coming up and affecting California or Hawaii," she said.

"For tsunami generation, an 8 is relatively small."