New Yorkers are desperately trying to reach loved ones in central Mexico after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake stunned the region Tuesday, killing over 200 people.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.1 quake hit at 1:14 p.m. (2:15 p.m. EDT) and was centered near the Puebla state town of Raboso, about 76 miles (123 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City.
Electricity and cellphone service was interrupted in many areas and traffic was snarled as signal lights went dark.
Many people in Sunset Park in Brooklyn have family in Mexico and said they have tried to call them since they heard the news.
"I'm actually very worried because my family lives there," one man said. "I have cousins that live there, my mom lives there, my brothers. So, it's pretty worrying, especially after the earthquake in 1985, Mexico City was devastated, it was in ruins."
"It's like what happened in 1985, it's the same," another man said. "It's too hard for a lot of people now. A lot of people died."
Mayor Bill de Blasio will send 27 medical and disaster relief personnel members from the city fire department and police department to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean on Wednesday morning, his press secretary said.
"I'm from Mexico, and I have some family members over there," one man said in Sunset Park. "I'm not sure if they got affected by it, but based on the pictures that I've seen and some of the videos, it's shocking."
"I hope everything is ok, but family that's over there — we should be worried," another man said. "There's always a disaster and stuff like that."
"It's not easy, because it's the second time, and this time, I don't know," another New Yorker said. "It's more danger, you know."
Thousands fled into the streets of Mexico City in panic after the quake, and many stayed to help rescue those trapped.
Dozens of buildings tumbled into mounds of rubble or were severely damaged in densely populated parts of Mexico City and nearby states. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said buildings fell at 44 places in the capital alone as high-rises across the city swayed sickeningly.
Hours after the magnitude 7.1 quake, rescue workers were still clawing through the wreckage of a primary school that partly collapsed in the city's south looking for any children who might be trapped. Some relatives said they had received Whatsapp message from two girls inside.
President Enrique Pena Nieto visited the school late Tuesday and said 22 bodies had been recovered there, two of them adults. He added in comments broadcast online by Financiero TV that 30 children and eight adults were still reported missing. Rescuers were continuing their search and pausing to listen for voices from the rubble.
The quake is the deadliest in Mexico since a 1985 quake on the same date killed thousands. It came less than two weeks after another powerful quake caused 90 deaths in the country's south.
Luis Felipe Puente, head of the national Civil Defense agency, reported Tuesday night that the confirmed death toll had been raised to 149.
His tweet said 55 people died in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City, while 49 died in the capital and 32 were killed in nearby Puebla state, where the quake was centered. Ten people died in the State of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City on three sides, and three were killed in Guerrero state, he said.
The count did not include one death that officials in the southern state of Oaxaca reported earlier as quake-related.
The federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing up emergency funds. President Enrique Pena Nieto said he had ordered all hospitals to open their doors to the injured.
Mancera, the Mexico City mayor, said 50 to 60 people were rescued alive by citizens and emergency workers in the capital. Authorities said at least 70 people in the capital had been hospitalized for injuries.
The federal interior minister, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, said authorities had reports of people possibly still being trapped in collapsed buildings. He said search efforts were slow because of the fragility of rubble.
"It has to be done very carefully," he said. And "time is against us."
The quake sent people throughout the city fleeing from homes and offices, and many people remained in the streets for hours, fearful of returning to the structures.
Puebla Gov. Tony Gali tweeted there were damaged buildings in the city of Cholula, including collapsed church steeples.
In Jojutla, a town in neighboring Morelos state, the town hall, a church and other buildings tumbled down, and 12 people were reported killed.
The Instituto Morelos secondary school partly collapsed in Jojutla, but school director Adelina Anzures said the earthquake drill that the school held in the morning was a boon when the real thing hit just two hours later.
"I told them that it was not a game, that we should be prepared," Anzures said of the drill. When the shaking began, children and teachers filed out rapidly and no one was hurt, she said. "It fell and everything inside was damaged."
Earlier in the day, workplaces across Mexico City held earthquake readiness drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, a magnitude 8.0 shake that killed thousands of people and devastated large parts of the capital.
In that tragedy, too, ordinary citizens played a crucial role in rescue efforts that overwhelmed officials.
Local media broadcast video of whitecap waves churning the city's normally placid canals of Xochimilco as boats bobbed up and down.
Mexico City's international airport suspended operations and was checking facilities for damage.
Much of Mexico City is built on former lakebed, and the soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes centered hundreds of miles away.
The new quake appeared to be unrelated to the magnitude 8.1 temblor that hit Sept. 7 off Mexico's southern coast and also was felt strongly in the capital.
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle noted the epicenters of the two quakes were 400 miles (650 kilometers) apart and said most aftershocks are within (60 miles) 100 kilometers.
There have been 19 earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 or larger within 150 miles (250 kilometers) of Tuesday's quake over the past century, Earle said.
Earth usually has about 15 to 20 earthquakes this size or larger each year, Earle said.
Initial calculations showed that more than 30 million people would have felt moderate shaking from Tuesday's quake.