Deadly 8.2-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Mexico
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MEXICO CITY (AP) --- A massive earthquake hit off the coast of southern Mexico early Friday morning, toppling houses in Chiapas state, causing at least five deaths and setting off a tsunami warning.
Mexico's president says earthquake magnitude was 8.2, the strongest in a century in the country.
Among the dead are two children in Tabasco state. Tabasco Gov. Arturo Nunez said that one of the children died when a wall collapsed, and the other was a baby who died in a children's hospital that lost electricity, cutting off the supply to the infant's ventilator.
The other three deaths were in Chiapas state, in San Cristobal de las Casas.
Lamp posts sway violently after 8.1-magnitude earthquake hits off the coast of Mexico near the border with Guatemala https://t.co/vvZWEBAuLi pic.twitter.com/ZVuZCz8GcA
— CNN International (@cnni) September 8, 2017
The quake was so strong that it caused buildings to sway violently in Mexico's capital more than 650 miles away from the epicenter in the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast.
Residents fled buildings, often in their pajamas, and gathered in frightened groups in the street. Some neighborhoods remained in darkness after electricity was knocked out.
Tsunami waves were measured off Mexico's Pacific coast after the earthquake.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says waves of 3.3 feet above the tide level were measured off Salina Cruz. Authorities say residents in Puerto Madero in Chiapas were being evacuated as a precaution.
Smaller tsunami waves were observed on the coast or measured by ocean gauges in several other places. The center's forecast said Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala could see waves of a meter or less.
No threat was posed to Hawaii and the western and South Pacific.
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