Few things in life can be as unbearable as watching children suffer, when the Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City folded into itself, in consequence to the 7.1-magnitude earthquake, we all felt like we had just lost something, and we did.
People (or should I say heroes) from everywhere in town, ran into the location and retrieved the bodies of 32 children and 5 adults from the debris. The community is not giving up though as there are still dozens more missing, and a recent body temperature scan of the area has identified at least 5 people who are still alive under the rubble.
The scanner is able to detect life through solid structures like concrete at a distance of over 65 feet. Experts have said that those who are still alive are at a distance of 9 to 13 feet under the surface.
The sight is as heartbreaking as it is inspiring. People of all backgrounds, social status, creeds, genre, civilians and professionals, it doesn’t matter, have come together to work side by side, in an effort to save lives. They are literally scraping through the rubble with their bare hands, comforting each other and taking the names of the missing children on cardboard signs to the streets. walking the streets with the names of the missing children printed on cardboard signs.
The situation is far from ideal, but every rescue, every sign of life no matter how minute it is, provides the rescuers with hope. On this dusty and somber scene, of what used to be full of youthful life, the heroes manage to pull out several sobbing children, with no apparent serious injuries.
There is only one goal on these people’s minds, to save as many of their own as they can.
A Fox reporter asks one of the volunteers by the name Miguel Angel if he thinks there are people alive, to which our hero forcefully responds ‘of course’.
“Houses were turned into hospitals,” said one of the volunteer ladies that brought her son along to help. “We brought shovels, spikes, first aid material. It was neighbors more than anything,” she said.
Another woman at the scene barely made it out as she managed to feel the falling buildings near the school. “When we came out on the street, we saw the cloud of dust,” as she told Imagen Noticias. “We would get close and yell, but the dust wouldn’t let us see anything. We hugged and cried and they told me a column fell and there was a little girl crushed, there in the middle.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, has informed the country that there is as many as 30 people still trapped in the wrecked kindergarten through secondary private school.
Los Topos, a rescue team that was formed during the 1985 earthquake are coordinating the rescue efforts with the Mexican Navy and the Red Cross, as people have been confirmed to be alive, no heavy machinery can enter the area yet, for fears of hurting the survivors.
Our thoughts and prayers go to all the victims and the outstanding heroes that keep the faith.