Earthquake Strikes in Oaxaca State, Mexico, Stirring Fear

MEXICO CITY — A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The quake was reported at 5:39 p.m. local time, shaking buildings about 225 miles away in Mexico City, where the memory of a Sept. 19 earthquake that killed more than 300 people in the capital and other parts of the country is still fresh. Friday’s tremors left tall buildings swaying for more than two minutes.

The epicenter of the quake was near the town of Pinotepa Nacional, in the Pacific state of Oaxaca.

A presidential spokesman, Eduardo Sánchez, told the Televisa network two hours after the earthquake that there were no reports of deaths or injuries.

Luis Felipe Puente, Mexico’s national coordinator of civil protection, wrote on Twitter that there were no immediate reports of major damage. In Oaxaca, the state director of civil protection, Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga, said that homes were damaged in the town of Santa María Chimalapas and walls fell in the town of Jamiltepec.

In Mexico City, the capital, residents streamed from buildings and into the streets, texting to see if their loved ones were safe, gripped by a sense of dread just a few months old.
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Residents of the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods of Mexico City, which suffered some of the worst damage in September, ran out into the streets in panic, looking up at the buildings as the earthquake warning system went off. Once in the streets, they searched for signs of damage to their buildings.

SOURCE :- nytimes