Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100088
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANZANILLO, MEXICO LENGTH: Medium
At least 90 people were reported injured. The 7.6-magnitude quake - felt as far north as Dallas and Oklahoma City, according to seismologists - was the second powerful tremor to hit Mexico in a month.
All of the known dead were in coastal communities in the Pacific coast states of Jalisco and Colima.
``The injured are everywhere,'' said Livas de la Garza, a textile shop owner in the city of Manzanillo, one of the hardest-hit areas.
The quake struck at 9:37 a.m. and was centered underwater three miles southwest of the Pacific coast between Colima and Jalisco states. The U.S. Geological Survey put the epicenter of the quake 15 miles from Manzanillo and about 335 miles west of Mexico City.
The tremor lasted about two minutes and was followed by two small aftershocks. The quake opened fissures up to a foot wide in the main coastal highway.
Rescuers, clearing rubble with bulldozers and cranes, pulled 12 bodies and 10 injured people from the Costa Real hotel in the port and resort area of Manzanillo, in Colima.
Red Cross workers and sailors from the nearby port crawled over the wreckage of the hotel, which resembled gargantuan dominoes pushed over by a giant. Red roof tiles were scattered around.
The lawn area alongside the hotel swimming pool had been turned into a temporary morgue, where four bodies covered by sheets lay side by side. Nearby was a small white coffin, obviously intended for a child. Rescue workers took another body away in an ambulance.
A strong aftershock startled the blue-masked rescue workers, who still labored with picks and shovels at sunset.
``The rescue is going to be difficult,'' Adm. Manuel Barron told the Mexican TV network Televisa. ``Sounds have been heard. We think there are more people in the rubble.''
At least 30 guests were registered at the hotel and 27 employees were working, the Notimex news agency said. It was not clear how many were in the building when the quake hit.
The temblor cut telephone service and electricity to many areas, including the resort itself. Authorities canceled flights to Manzanillo, citing runway damage.
A state of emergency was declared in Jalisco.
After reporting up to 45 deaths in Jalisco earlier in the day, authorities there late Monday sharply revised the death toll in the state to just 10 and apologized for the earlier incorrect figures.
``The figures came from telephone reports, and some of the same deaths were reported by family members two and three times,'' state spokesman Juan Carlos Diaz Morales said.
Three people died in Jaluco, one in Barra de Navidad, three in Malaque, two in Tequezcuilan and one in Mascota, officials said.
Twenty people were reported killed in the neighboring state of Colima, including eight who perished just outside Manzanillo when the building housing the state judicial police collapsed, state spokesman Mario Cardenas said. He denied earlier reports that jail inmates were killed.
Some roads and bridges were heavily damaged, but many routes remained passable, reports said. One of two cement crosses that graced a cathedral in another resort city, Puerto Vallarta, toppled.
Mexico City skyscrapers swayed precariously, but no damages or injuries were reported.es northwest of Manzanillo, Colima state spokesman Mario Cardenas said by telephone.
Notimex also quoted authorities as saying three people were killed when a jail collapsed in Santiago de Compostela, just outside Manzanillo.
Mexico City skyscrapers swayed precariously, but no damages or injuries were reported.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB