Mexico Earthquake Rescues: Hour-By-Hour
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The Latest on a major earthquake that has struck Mexico:
9:45 a.m.
Rescuers have located a child alive under the rubble of a Mexico City school that collapsed due to yesterday's 7.1 magnitude earthquake.
Images broadcast by Mexican media show helmeted workers working at the debris at the Enrique Rebsamen school in a southern neighborhood of the capital.
Foro TV reports that the child is a girl. Rescuers spotted the child and shouted to her to move her hand if she could hear them, and she did. A search dog subsequently entered the wreckage and confirmed she was alive.
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9:10 a.m.
The head of Mexico's national civil defense agency says 225 people are now known to be dead due to the magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
Luis Felipe Puente posted a tweet Wednesday saying 94 are known dead in Mexico City, 71 in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 12 in the State of Mexico, four in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
He'd earlier listed 217 fatalities from the quake that hit southeast of Mexico City on Tuesday.
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7:15 a.m.
The Israeli military says it's sending a 70-member delegation to Mexico to assist with rescue efforts following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus is a military spokesman who says the delegation is expected to arrive in Mexico on Thursday morning. He says the delegation's main effort will be to provide engineering assistance.
Some 25 engineers make up the biggest component of the team. They will help survey and assess damage and determine whether buildings are safe. The team will also include search and rescue professionals, as well as support staff providing medical care and logistics.
Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it was sending a rescue team in response to a request for assistance from Mexico. Netanyahu paid an official visit to Mexico last week.
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6:45 a.m.
Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says a Spanish national has been identified among the victims of Mexico's magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
Officials aren't yet identifying the person or giving more details.
Mexico's civil defense director says that at least 217 people died in Tuesday's quake. No other victims so far have been identified among the victims.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday sent a telegram to Mexico's president offering help in rescue efforts.
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4:50 a.m.
Pope Francis has led tens of thousands of people in prayer for the victims of the Mexico earthquake.
Francis acknowledged many Mexican pilgrims were on hand for his weekly general audience Wednesday in St. Peter's Square.
Speaking to them in Spanish, Francis add-libbed a prayer, saying: "In this moment of pain, I want to express my closeness and prayer to the dear Mexican people." He urged prayers for victims, their families and rescue crews.
The 7.1 magnitude quake toppled schools, homes and apartment buildings and killed more than 200 people in the deadliest temblor to strike Mexico in decades.
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4:35 a.m.
The head of Mexico's national Civil Defense Agency has lowered the number of confirmed dead in Tuesday's earthquake to 217.
Luis Felipe Puente says on his Twitter account that at least 86 people died in Mexico City, 71 in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 12 in the State of Mexico, four in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
He gave no explanation for the lower toll after earlier reporting 248 confirmed deaths.
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4:10 a.m.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says it has received a request for assistance from Mexico following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, and that it will be dispatching a search-and-rescue team as soon as possible.
Israel's Foreign Ministry says a team of approximately 60 people, mostly engineers and search-and-rescue personnel from the military's Home Front Command, will be dispatched Wednesday afternoon to assist in the aftermath of the earthquake, which is known to have killed almost 250 people.
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2:50 a.m.
Hundreds of volunteers, soldiers and police are digging and tunneling overnight into the precarious, pancaked ruins of a collapsed Mexico City school where at least 25 students and teachers were killed in a magnitude 7.1 quake.
Volunteer rescue worker Pedro Serrano, 29, a doctor, was one of the rescuers who managed to crawl into the crevices of the tottering pile of rubble that had been Escuela Enrique Rebsamen.
With barely room to move, in an intensely claustrophobic situation, Serrano managed to make it into a collapsed classroom -- only to find all of its occupants dead.
"We dug holes, then crawled in on our bellies," Serrano said.
"We managed to get into a collapsed classroom. We saw some chairs and wooden tables. The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults -- a woman and a man."
Asked if there was hope of finding anyone alive, Serrano looked weary but said workers were still trying despite the danger.
"We can hear small noises, but we don't know if they're coming from above or below, from the walls above (crumbling), or someone below calling for help."
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2:30 a.m.
Police, firefighters and ordinary Mexicans are digging frantically through the rubble of collapsed schools, homes and apartment buildings, looking for survivors of Mexico's deadliest earthquake in decades as the number of confirmed fatalities climbed to 248.
Adding poignancy and a touch of the surreal, Tuesday's magnitude-7.1 quake struck on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 earthquake that killed thousands. Just hours earlier, people around Mexico had held earthquake drills to mark the date.
One of the most desperate rescue efforts was at a primary and secondary school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-story building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete slabs. Journalists saw rescuers pull at least two small bodies from the rubble, covered in sheets.
A mix of neighborhood volunteers, police and firefighters used trained dogs and their bare hands to search through the school's rubble. The crowd of anxious parents outside the gates shared reports that two families had received Whatsapp messages from girls trapped inside, but that could not be confirmed. The rescue effort was punctuated by cries of "Quiet!" so searchers could listen for any faint calls for help.
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