September 19: On This Day in World History … briefly
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
1985: Earthquake wrecks Mexico City
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early morning of 19 September at 7.17:50 (CST) with a moment magnitude of 8.0 and a Mercalli intensity of IX (violent). The event caused serious damage to the Greater Mexico City area and the deaths of at least 5 000 people.
The sequence of events included a foreshock of magnitude 5.2 that occurred the prior May, the main shock on 19 September, and two large aftershocks.
The first of these occurred on 20 September with a magnitude of 7.5 and the second occurred seven months later on 30 April 1986 with a magnitude of 7.0. They were located off the coast along the Middle America Trench, more than 350 kilometres (220 mi) away, but the city suffered major damage due to its large magnitude and the ancient lake bed that Mexico City sits on.
The event caused between three and four billion USD in damage as 412 buildings collapsed and another 3 124 were seriously damaged in the city.
Death toll
To this day, the death toll has been in dispute. About 5,000 bodies were recovered from the debris and represent the total of legally certified deaths but does not include those who were missing and never recovered. Reports have numbered the dead anywhere from 5 000 to 30 000 (claimed by a number of citizens’ groups) to 45 000 claimed by the National Seismological Service.
However, the most commonly cited figures are around 10,000. While high as an absolute number, it compares to other earthquakes of similar strength in Asia and other parts of Latin America where death tolls have run between 66 000 and 242 000 for earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 or above. Part of the explanation for that was the hour in which the earthquake struck, approximately 7.20 am, when people were awake but not in the many schools and office buildings that were severely damaged.
However, the death toll was great enough to require the use of the IMSS baseball field as a morgue, using ice to conserve bodies for identification.
The main reason that the figures have been disputed is the government’s response to the tragedy. President Miguel de la Madrid ordered a news blackout and did not address the situation at all for 39 hours after the event. When the government did give estimates of the number killed, they ranged from 7 000 to 35 000. Consequently, most of the populace believes that the true numbers have never been revealed.
According to government figures, approximately 250 000 people lost their homes directly due to the earthquake. Unofficial sources put that figure much higher. Some sources say that more than 50 000 families lost their homes. INEGI reports that 700 000 people in the Federal District and the suburbs in the State of Mexico lost their homes
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