A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck southern Mexico’s Pacific coast on Tuesday, killing at least six people and seriously injuring others in isolated villages, while causing damage to buildings hundreds of miles away in Mexico City, reports Reuters.
The fatalities were near the quake’s center in Oaxaca, a mountainous state known for its coffee, mescal and Spanish colonial architecture.
A Reuters witness in the state’s Pacific coast resort town of La Crucecita, which Mexican authorities said was the epicenter of the earthquake, saw anxious residents standing outside their homes hours after the tremor as they feared deadly aftershocks.
Houses were scarred by wide cracks across walls and residents sought to clear debris from the streets. About 200 houses in the area were damaged, including 30 that were badly impacted, a local official said.
“We lost everything in one moment to nature,” said Vicente Romero, an owner of a stationary store whose house suffered structural damage. “This is our life’s work.”
Rockfalls blocked winding mountain roads between the state capital of Oaxaca city and the coast. Rescue workers reported three people seriously injured in the remote hill village of Santa Catarina Xanaguia, one state official said.
Rescue workers battled for hours to reach the settlement, near the epicenter, where the quake brought down homes and parts of the mountainside, the official said.
A clinic and old churches near the epicenter were severely damaged, images on social media showed.
The dead included a worker from state oil company Pemex in Oaxaca, who fell from a height at the country’s biggest oil refinery. The refinery was briefly closed after a fire.
Miguel Candelaria, 30, was working at his computer in his family home in the Oaxaca town of Juchitan when the ground trembled. He ran outside with relatives, but they stopped in the middle of the street as the pavement buckled and rocked.
“We couldn’t walk... the street was like chewing gum,” said Candelaria, 30.
Quakes of magnitudes over 7 are major earthquakes capable of widespread, heavy damage.