Status: 08.09.2021 09:12 a.m.
Buildings also wobbled in Mexico City, more than 300 kilometers away: A strong earthquake shook the region around Acapulco. At least one person died. There is no longer any danger of a tsunami.
A major earthquake struck near the Mexican resort of Acapulco. The US earthquake monitoring station USGS gave the strength of the tremor on Tuesday evening (local time) as 7.0, Mexico’s seismological service SSN as 7.1. According to the SSN, the center was eleven kilometers southwest of Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero, at a depth of around ten kilometers.
One dead from an overturned mast
The governor of Guerrero, Héctor Astudillo, said on Milenio television that a man died in Coyuca de Benítez when a mast fell on him. There are many reports of damage to buildings.
The quake could also be clearly felt in Mexico City, more than 300 kilometers away, where buildings wobbled. The mayor of the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced on Twitter that there were initially no reports of serious damage. In many parts of the city, however, the power went out.
The Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported on Twitter, “Fortunately, there is no serious damage”.
The mayor of Acapulco, Adela Román, told the Milenio television station that the situation has not been bad so far. However, there are “many gas leaks in many places”, including landslides and collapsed walls. People worried about possible aftershocks.
According to the US warning system, a tsunami was possible on Guerrero’s Pacific coast. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has now announced that there is no longer any danger from high waves.
The entire west coast of the American double continent lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, which is known for its seismic activity.
Violent earthquakes occur again and again in Mexico. On September 19, 2017, a tremor (magnitude 7.1) killed 369 people, 228 of them in Mexico City – at that time the epicenter was closer to the capital. The accident occurred exactly 32 years to the day after an 8.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 10,000 people in Mexico City in 1985.