One dead in strong earthquake in Mexico

A strong earthquake struck western Mexico, killing one person and causing panic hundreds of kilometers away in the capital, Mexico, coinciding with the memory of two devastating earthquakes.

Buildings shook and residents of the capital ran into the streets when the 7.7-magnitude quake struck, according to the National Earthquake Agency.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Twitter that one person had been killed by debris falling into a shopping center in Manzanillo, in the western state of Colima. But he noted that there was no serious damage in Mexico.

The epicenter was located 59 kilometers south of Qualcomman in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan, and 400 kilometers west of the capital, Mexico, according to seismologists. As for its depth, it reached 15 km.

Many in the Mexican capital are still traumatized by an earthquake five years ago that killed hundreds of people.

Monday’s earthquake was the third major earthquake on record to hit the Latin American country on September 19.
But its timing is only a coincidence, according to the National Seismological Agency.

“There is no scientific reason to explain it,” she said.

Earthquake warning bells rang in Mexico less than an hour following the city organized emergency exercises as part of a series of events to commemorate the 1985 and 2017 disasters.

Mexico is located in a region of seismic and volcanic activity that is the largest in the world known as the “Ring of Fire”.

On September 19, 2017, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed 369 people, most of them in the capital.

On the same date in 1985, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake devastated central Mexico, leaving more than ten thousand people dead and destroying hundreds of buildings.