Today, Tuesday, September 19th, the 32nd anniversary of a 1985 quake that did major damage to the capital, an earthquake has jolted Mexico City with a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Mexico’s seismol
ogical agency estimated its preliminary magnitude at 6.8 and said its center was east of the city in the state of Puebla. That municipality is about 40 miles southeast of the capital.
The extent of damage or injuries was not immediately clear, but people fled office buildings along the central Reforma Avenue. Early images both static and video show plumes of dust and/or smoke through out the city.
A video that appears to show the earthquake in action show lights swaying above people crowding into hallways for safety, and then those lights seeming to lose power.
The earthquake hit less than two weeks after a devastating 8.1 magnitude quake that impacted off the coast of Chiapas. That event killed at least 61 people, and left devastation primarily in the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca which have a combined population of nine million people.