Deadly 6.5 earthquake strikes north of Acapulco

Earthquake in Mexico

ACAPULCO, Mexico -- A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck the region north of Acapulco on Saturday night, and people in Mexico City fled into the streets.

The epicenter was about 82 miles north of Acapulco in the southwestern state of Guerrero and about 40 miles deep, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The quake was intially reported as a 6.8 but downgraded to 6.5.

Telemundo reported that at least two people were killed..

In Acapulco, hundreds of anxious tourists congregated in the streets after fleeing rocking buildings. Authorities said they had found no structural damage and had no reports of injuries in the Pacific resort.

Buildings in Mexico City, about 100 miles northeast of the epicenter, swayed during the quake, but there were no immediate reports of major damage there.

People in one part of the capital's upscale Condesa neighborhood ran out of their houses and gathered in the streets, hugging each other while some shook and began to cry. On one street, a group of women joined hands in a circle, closed their eyes and began to pray.

"Please God, help us and let everything be OK," said one. "It's OK. It's OK. Everything is OK."

Reuters reporters in Mexico City said the earthquake seemed to go on for an unusually long period.

"I was dreadfully afraid, I thought it was never going to end," said Laura Gonzalez, who was drinking in a bar in the capital when the quake struck.

Power was knocked out in parts of the capital, but Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said water services, the subway and the airport were working normally.

Parts of Mexico City rest on the shaky soil of a former lake bed, which tends to magnify the effect of earthquakes. An 8.1-magnitude quake in 1985 killed as many as 10,000 people in the city.

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26 bodies found in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city

Dead bodies in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — The bound and gagged bodies of 26 men were found early Thursday in abandoned vehicles in Guadalajara, a grim sign of escalating mafia violence among gangsters vying for control of Mexico’s second-largest city.

Investigators from the state of Jalisco said that the corpses were stuffed in three vehicles left near the Millennium Arches, a major landmark, and that each of the dead had been shot in the head.

The discovery came less than 24 hours after a similarly grisly scene in Mexico’s Sinaloa state, where the charred remains of 16, some of them handcuffed and wearing bulletproof vests, were left in two pickups. Investigators are looking into a possible connection to Thursday’s crime scene.

“These barbaric acts show that the war between the criminals is getting even more brutal,” said Jorge Aristoteles Sandoval, Guadalajara’s mayor.

Guadalajara has not been among the places considered major Mexican drug-war battlegrounds, such as Ciudad Juarez or Monterrey. But analysts say Thursday’s discovery could signal a new push by the Zetas cartel into territory that has long been the domain of the Sinaloa Federation, the reigning criminal power along Mexico’s western coast.

Luis Carlos Najera, Jalisco state police chief, told reporters that a message was left in one of the vehicles, a white van with license plates from the state of Mexico. But he did not disclose the contents of the message.

Drug-war experts say the Zetas may be muscling into Guadalajara to fight for a bigger piece of Mexico’s billion-dollar methamphetamine trade. Local Sinaloa boss Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel was killed by Mexican soldiers in the city in July 2010. Since then, factional fighting has broken out among groups of gangsters with shifting loyalties and names, such as the Resistance, the New Jalisco Cartel and the Milenio Cartel.

The gruesome spectacle Thursday comes at an inopportune time for Guadalajara, which is two days away from hosting an expected 600,000 visitors for the annual Guadalajara International Book Fair, billed as the largest in the Spanish-speaking world.

News by Washingtonpost

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