Quake Emergency Is Not Over Yet, Mexico Reports
Some schools and businesses reopened Monday in this earthquake-ravaged capital, but a preliminary government report declared that the “period of emergency is not over.”
Many streets are still blocked by rubble from hundreds of buildings that collapsed in the quakes of Sept. 19 and 20.
President Miguel de la Madrid called on all work crews to make the continuing search for survivors their top priority, but there was little hope that anyone could be found alive in the debris, 12 days after the shattering first temblor.
A report by a national emergency committee made up of eight Cabinet ministers called the quakes “the biggest geophysical phenomenon registered in the past 40 years” in Mexico.
Government and business leaders said that it will take Mexico, a nation of 76 million people, years to recover. About a quarter of the population lives in or around the capital, making it the world’s most populous metropolitan area.
Julio Millan, president of the Federation of Industrial Chambers, estimated property damage to the country’s production facilities to be $5 billion.
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