Firefighters, police and ordinary citizens are frantically digging through the rubble of apartment buildings, homes and schools in a desperate attempt to find survivors.
Among those who raced to the scene to help is an Ottawa woman, originally from Mexico City and there visiting when the quake struck.
One of the most desperate searches for survivors was happening at primary and elementary school in the country’s capital city. The entire wing of the three-storey school had collapsed, killing at least 21 children and 4 teachers.
“Please try to help if you are in Canada,” the woman said in an interview from Mexico City. The woman is an Ottawa resident, originally from Mexico and visiting family there when the earthquake hit. She joined the search at the school where several more children and teachers are still missing amid the rubble.
“Right now they are trying to rescue a little girl they heard inside,” the womab said at the scene of the school, “and sometimes they ask us to be quiet,” she said.
In Mexico City, the mayor said at least 44 buildings had collapsed. The magnitude 7.1 quake was so powerful it pancaked buildings, sending choking clouds of dust into the air.
Inside a newsroom, the walls were shaking. Outside, cars were frozen at the moment the quake struck, with people scrambling to flee, panicking at the chaos unfolding around them.
“I still don't feel safe,” said one man, “I feel like I'm living in an aftershock constantly.”
University of Ottawa professor Patrice Corriveau is on paternity leave in Mexico City. Two of his kids were at school but fortunately the family is fine.
“It took me 20 seconds to realize it was an earthquake even though I heard the siren,” Corriveau said in a phone interview from Mexico City, “I was lucky enough to be close so I ran to the school. My kids were crying when they saw me and then now proud they have survived an earthquake in Mexico.”
Inside the Corazon de Maiz, an Ottawa restaurant in the Byward Market, owner Mariana Torio should be thinking about the birth of her baby girl tomorrow. Instead, she worries about her family and her husband's family, both in Mexico City amid rubble and ruin.
“My mom was downtown where all those buildings fell down,” says Torio, “because she was shopping since she's coming to visit me and she said “I dropped everything and ran off like crazy to get away from tall buildings.”
Husband Eric Igari says he has tried to contact his grandmother but has had no luck, “There is some family I don't know about, so I’m waiting and waiting and calling and leaving messages and praying,” he added.
