Quake-Hit Puebla in Race to Shore Up Historic Sites

Jose Luis Romero, an auto worker who lives on the edge of this treasured colonial city, made a pilgrimage to inspect the damage wrought by last week’s powerful earthquake.

What he saw unnerved him.

“The people of Puebla are in pain,” he said this week as he gazed at the mustard-yellow bell tower of the 17th century Church of San Agustin, the top of which looked as if it had been chewed off. “It will be very expensive to fix this. Some things will return to what they were before, but not all.”

Authorities are scrambling to prove him wrong. But they are in a race against time as they struggle to save historic buildings jeopardized by the magnitude-6.7 quake that rocked central Mexico on June 15.

At risk in Puebla state are hundreds of churches, from plastered adobe village chapels to the Company of Jesus Church in the city of Puebla, a soaring temple of lacy white plasterwork built by Jesuits in 1690.

Of greatest concern is the state capital itself. Filled with exuberant baroque churches and homes decorated with colorful tile, plaster curlicues and wrought-iron balconies, Puebla is often called Mexico’s best-preserved colonial city.

“They’re sculptures,” said Romero, the auto worker, referring to the churches. “This was our culture, the inheritance our ancestors left us.”

Restorers’ biggest enemy is the weather. The rainy season has just begun, and officials fear that wind and downpours could further damage buildings. “Eighty church towers are about to fall over” in the state, acknowledged Sergio Vergara of the national historic monuments agency.

The other problem is money. Repairs will cost hundreds of millions of dollars--money the government simply doesn’t have.

“We think 99.9% can be totally saved. The problem is the time and organization to save them,” said Vergara, who is overseeing restoration work in this city about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City.

Around the state, government restoration brigades are inspecting buildings, moving colonial religious art from under leaky roofs and drawing up plans to start rebuilding.

But it could be a long process. Officials say it could take a year just to do emergency repairs to historic structures so they won’t be ruined by rain or another quake.

And the bill will be huge. Francisco Ortiz, Puebla state director for the historic monuments agency, estimates that it will cost nearly $70 million just to stabilize the damaged historic buildings. Restoration will be additional.

“We’re trying to see if the people, the churches, will contribute. We’ll have to do something, since so many buildings were damaged,” he said. “And Mexico is in an economic crisis.”

Although the June 15 earthquake packed a tremendous punch, matching the 1994 Northridge temblor, damage was far lighter than in the Los Angeles quake, which claimed 57 lives and caused more than $40 billion in damage.

In Mexico last week, 17 people died. While total repair estimates aren’t yet available, officials say that 300 schools, 100 government buildings, 30 hospitals and more than 4,000 homes were damaged in Puebla state, the hardest hit.

A Key Religious Center Takes a Big Hit

The biggest repair bill, however, will come from restoring at least 200 churches and other monuments in the state, many from the Spanish colonial period. In Cholula, a key pre-Hispanic religious center outside Puebla, 39 of the city’s 150 churches were damaged. Many had been built by Spanish conquerors on the ruins of Indian temples.

In the city of Puebla, the quake damaged only 60 of the 2,500 registered historic buildings in the center. But repairs here are a priority. The city is an official U.N. cultural landmark, and a top tourist attraction. The colonial center is as important to Mexicans as the French Quarter of New Orleans is to Americans.

Construction crews are already rushing to shore up the historic treasures.

Mayor Mario Marin pointed from the window of his borrowed office to the top of the imposing nearby City Hall, where workers were inserting wooden planks under fragile gray stone arches and wrapping wire around damaged towers.

“Puebla is on its feet,” the mayor declared. “We are busy rebuilding. We don’t want Puebla to stay paralyzed.”

At the nearby 16th century cathedral, considered one of Mexico’s finest, workers were covering cracks with plastic and a limestone solution to prevent rain from seeping into the dome and making it heavier and more likely to collapse. The cathedral, famed for its effusive, gold-trimmed interior, was open to tourists again this week, like most monuments in the city.

Mayor Puts Bill at More Than $30 Million

Marin estimates that it will cost more than $30 million to restore the damaged monuments and churches in his city. The federal and state governments have provided initial quake assistance of about $3 million, he said.

The mayor has set up a trust to receive contributions from foundations and individuals. Mexican groups in Chicago and New York, major destinations for immigrants from Puebla, have already offered support, he said. Several Puebla business executives have offered to sponsor restoration of churches.

Adding to the city’s woes is a plunge in tourism, a key industry, since pictures of earthquake damage were broadcast around the globe. In fact, while experts worry about the cracks in historic buildings here, the damage would appear light to many tourists.

Ironically, much of the damage to churches and monuments stemmed from relatively modern repairs that were poorly planned. Ortiz of the historic monuments office noted that the bell tower of San Agustin that toppled had been rebuilt in the 1940s. The part of the 17th century City Hall that suffered cracks and fissures had been remodeled at the end of the last century.

“We have to think a lot about the modern repairs. They are counterproductive in many cases,” he said.

As the city begins rebuilding, residents are also trying to regain their peace of mind. Several lesser temblors have rocked the city this week, prompting panic but little damage. While Puebla has had earthquakes before, none were nearly as damaging as last week’s.

“Little by little, we’re getting back to normal. You have to rebuild your spirits too,” said Sister Guadalupe Cervantes, 61, a Roman Catholic nun watching a giant crane remove loose chunks of stone the size of washing machines from the roof of City Hall.

She noted that local residents are deeply religious and that they are pained by the damage to their beloved churches.

“This hurts our souls,” she said. “But we’ll rebuild everything. Or at least we’ll try.”