MEXICO CITY — A powerful earthquake rattled southern and central Mexico on Friday, interrupting President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first press briefing of the brand new yr as seismic alarms sounded.
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 and its epicenter was close to the city of San Marcos within the southern state of Guerrero close to the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, based on Mexico ’s nationwide seismological company.
The state’s civil protection company reported varied landslides round Acapulco and on different highways within the state.
Residents and vacationers in Mexico Metropolis and Acapulco rushed into the streets when the shaking started.
The U.S. Geological Survey mentioned the earthquake occurred at a depth of 21.7 miles (35 kilometers), 2.5 miles north-northwest of Rancho Viejo, Guerrero, which is within the mountains about 57 miles northeast of Acapulco.
Sheinbaum, who resumed her press briefing a short while later, mentioned she spoke with Guerrero’s Gov. Evelyn Salgado, who advised her there was no severe harm reported.
José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, a health care provider and human rights defender who lives on one of many peaks ringing Acapulco, mentioned he heard a robust rumble noise and all of the neighborhood canines started barking.
“In that second the seismic alert went off on my mobile phone,” he mentioned, “after which the shaking started to really feel robust with plenty of noise.”
He mentioned the shaking was lighter than in some earlier quakes and he had ready a backpack of necessities to be prepared to depart because the aftershocks continued.
He mentioned he had been unable to achieve some mates who dwell alongside the Costa Chica southeast of Acapulco as a result of communications had been minimize.
