Ask any resident of Mexico City what they were doing on the morning of Sept 19, 1985, they can tell you.
José Manuel Gómez Soto was getting ready for school when he felt
the earth move beneath his feet.
"I had never been in an earthquake before. I knew it was a strong one, but I didn't know how strong until I left my house and saw all the
building that had collapsed on my street"
What Gómez Soto, 32, saw was common sight in Mexico City that day, An earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale had just ripped througth the city, leaving more than 10,000 people dead, approximately 300,000 injured, and destroying almost 1,700 building.
The quake caused 4 billions dollars worth of damage, or 2.67 percent of the country's gross domestic product in 1985.
Due to their location on a forme lakebed, neihgborhoods dowtown and in Colonia Roma were the hardest hit.
For weeks, thousand of volunterees --including Gómez Soto-- dug through the rubble of the flattened building in a frantic search for survivors.
"We kept expecting the government to send help," Gómez Soto said. "In the movies, police helicopters and fire trucks are always at the secene of a disaster immediately". But that's not how it happened. Help never came"
The first major earthquake in Mexico City since 1957 found authorities unprepared to deal with a catastrophe of such magnitude....
Publicado por Tim Duffy en "The News" el 19 de Septiembre de 1997.
