Mexico's Longest Quake

It was nearly 4 a.m. on a cold, moonless night, when people across much of Mexico were jolted from sleep by the first tremors of an earthquake. In Mexico City, where a quake in 1957 had killed more than 50 people, hundreds poured into the streets in abject terror. When the earth stopped moving, 120 agonizing seconds after the initial jolt, Mexico had experienced the longest earthquake in its recorded history.

For all the panic, no one was hurt in Mexico City, and only minor damage was reported. The epicenter of the quake, however, was located 150 miles southeast of the capital. There the shock proved devastating. As rescue work got under way, government officials feared that the death toll, initially estimated at 400, could reach 1,000. The quake also injured more than 4,000 people and left nearly 25,000 homeless.

Hardest hit were the villages and small towns near Mexico's highest peak, the 18,700-ft. Orizaba volcano. In Veladero, a village of 2,000 people, only 20 of its 280 houses were left standing. In Orizaba, an industrial town near Veracruz, a three-story building was split in two, killing 19 people. Village after village offered the same vision of destruction and tragedy: young and old sifting through piles of adobe rubble, looking for something to salvage; men balancing wooden coffins on their heads, on the way to pick up their dead.

The quake was doubly disastrous because it came on the heels of the most damaging floods the country had seen in 30 years. President Luis Echeverria, who had toured flooded areas in Central Mexico only two days before the quake, visited the stricken villages to take charge of the relief work. Reconstruction, however, may have to be delayed. At week's end, torrential rains had resumed, threatening to topple buildings already weakened by the quake.

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