Hopes fade for people trapped under rubble after deadly Mexico City earthquake

Rescuers were trying to save an adult believed to be still trapped in a Mexico City school that collapsed in a devastating earthquake on Tuesday.

Throughout the day, the country was gripped by efforts to save a 12-year-old girl. However, late on Thursday, officials said that all the pupils had been accounted for, either alive or dead and that the search was now focused on an adult survivor.

Angel Enrique Sarmiento, undersecretary for the Navy, said 19 children and 6 adults had died in the school collapse. He said 11 children were rescued from the building. Mexico's Navy is leading search and rescue efforts at the site.

Residents awoke yesterday to survey the full extent of the destruction from the massive 7.1 quake that struck on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 233 people, nearly half of them in the capital.

Rescue efforts have been ceaseless and somewhat chaotic as ordinary Mexicans spring to help, with lists of survivors and the dead difficult to come by.

Many residents of the city have turned to social media to advise about missing family members. In the Enrique Rebsamen school in southern Mexico City, which has become a focal point in the tragedy, rescuers in the early morning dug out the lifeless body of a 58-year-old female teacher.

The focus of the rescue efforts at the school during the day had been the plight of a girl identified only as Frida Sofia, who was said to have been located alive under the rubble and became a symbol for the hopes of thousands of rescuers working around the clock in search of quake survivors.

Multiple rescuers at the school site spoke of the girl, with some saying she had reported five more children alive in the same space. Yet no family members had emerged while rescue efforts continued, and some officials had begun to say her identity was not clear.

"We have done an accounting with school officials and we are certain that all the children either died, unfortunately, are in hospitals or are safe at their homes," said Angel Enrique Sarmiento, the Navy assistant secretary, last night.

Tuesday's temblor struck just two hours after Mexico held a national earthquake drill, as it does every Sept. 19 to remember a devastating 1985 quake that killed tens of thousands.

There were outpourings of support yesterday for Mexico City, and other affected districts of Morelos and Puebla.

Dozens of collection centers were set up for citizens to contribute food, medicine, tents, and other supplies.

President Enrique Pena Nieto toured the hardest-hit areas and declared three days of national mourning.

In Morelos, south of the city, where 69 people were killed, one family of 11 was killed while celebrating a baptism as the church collapsed around them.

At least 60 of the 100 or so damaged or destroyed buildings in Mexico City were residences, now turned into tombs of rubble.

In the hip Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City, hundreds of volunteers on Thursday gathered around the Álvaro Obregón building, where 36 people were believed to be trapped.

One twenty-year old earthquake refugee said: “Two days ago I had a home, now I don’t.”

As hopes dwindled of finding anybody alive and with tons of rubble still to remove, authorities were increasing calls to use mechanical diggers. They faced opposition from the country's Topos rescuers, who formed as a volunteer search and rescue group in the aftermath of the 1985 quake, and who are famous for burrowing tunnels by propping up the concrete. They fear survivors might be crushed in the process.

Rescuers and search dogs from Southern California arrived on Thursday to help in the search for survivors, and US President Donald Trump said he had called Mr Nieto and offered assistance.

There have been hopeful reports of life amid the chaos. One woman was in the middle of labour in a hospital in the Roma neighborhood as the earthquake struck on Tuesday afternoon. She continued delivery even as staff evacuated the hospital, delivering a "miracle" baby boy on a nearby bench.

“The world was falling around us and he came to save ours. It’s the greatest message of love and example of strength and bravery for the world,” Mrs Mendoza’s husband, Amado Ortiz, told the newspaper El País.