Legendary painter Salvador Dali claimed that Mexico was one overwhelming country and that he couldn’t stand that it was more surreal than his own paintings. In what seems like a cruel and surreal joke, yesterday Mexico experienced another major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1, according to the United States Geological Survey. Mexico’s seismological agency claimed the epicenter took place south of Mexico city on the border of states Morelos and Puebla.
Images and videos of the destruction scenes are flooding social media and show the devastating effect that it took on the grounds of Mexico City where the tremor was more intense.
This earthquake comes on a fateful day that Mexico City commemorates the 32nd anniversary of the most destructive tremor the city ever experienced back in 1985, with nationwide seismic drills having been held earlier during the morning of yesterday in buildings across the city. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early hours of September 19 with a magnitude of 8.0 and a Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).
The deathly event caused widespread damage to the Greater Mexico City area and it took the lives out of at least 5,000 people. Adding insult to injury, two large aftershocks took place right after. The first of these occurred the next day on September 20 with a magnitude of 7.5 and the second one held it in seven months until April 30, 1986, with a magnitude of 7.0.
412 buildings collapsed that day, with 3,124 sustaining serious damage, causing a financial drain amounting to three to four billion dollars (that was a lot of money thirty-two years ago).
Yesterday’s echo of 1985 has already spawned major devastation, with 27 collapsed buildings and counting, not to mention the dozens if not hundreds of buildings that have become uninhabitable due to the damage.
It is truly humbling to watch the overwhelming videos that have surfaced, of the moment the tremor hit, they show how mighty and strong mother nature can be, and how all people, regardless of what imaginary power they might claim have, all panic and succumb to earth’s anger.
People took to Twitter to record these faithful moments of terror, as gas leaks in the Condesa neighborhood caused major explosions as you can see from the images and videos below.
There’s nothing left to do now, but take care of those who survived and stick together for our Mexican brothers who have contributed so much to our planet, on moments like these, is when humanity must shine its brightest.
Captan momento exacto del sismo en #Xochimilco pic.twitter.com/tc55UzVAWs
— NMás (@nmas) September 19, 2017
#TenemosSismo @AristeguiOnline #RT COMPARTAN #SISMO esto es en metro Etiopía @STCMetroGDF pic.twitter.com/VSex6kSNXI
— Nezahualcheems (@ElDecadente91) September 19, 2017
En el TEC CCM 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/6hz4mdR4Oh
— Risco (@jrisco) September 19, 2017
Se derrumba edificio en Alvaro Obregón, Condesa, CDMX
Huele a gas. Personas heridas salen del lugar pic.twitter.com/PDkeJHBfl5— Ruido en la Red (@RuidoEnLaRed) September 19, 2017