Earthquake Causes Damage in Mexico
Diocesan Press Service. October 24, 1973 [73231]
MEXICO CITY -- At 3:52 a.m., Tuesday, 28 August, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Mercalli scale awakened Mexico. First reports out of the States of Veracruz, Puebla and Oaxaca indicated that at least 300 people had been killed. Strong tremors shook Mexico City with minimum damage reported.
Two teams from the Mexican Episcopal Church went to the distressed area in order to discover what kind of aid was needed -- the reports coming into Mexico City being unclear. One team, headed by the Rt. Rev. Jose G. Saucedo, covered the cities of Orizaba, Cordoba, Ciudad Serdan and other towns along the route. It discovered that communication lines had not been cut and that the army was able to put into action previously planned emergency measures.
The second team, headed by the Rev. Deacon Fulgencio Bustamante, together with medical students from the University of Toluca with whom he works, went into the mountains of the State of Puebla and encountered several small communities entirely cut off from supplies.
As word of the disaster spread throughout Mexico and into the outside world, money and clothing were received, especially from individuals within the Mexican Church, and several days later Mr. Bustamante and students from the Universities of Toluca, Mexico and Puebla carried the clothing, medical supplies and $1,500 U.S. of food into these communities whose situations were still extreme.
In addition to the earthquake, in the week that followed the first floods in the Bajio Valley area the rains returned and more dams burst. Adding to the chaos, hurricane Brenda slammed into the Gulf Coast states.
The latest figures on the dead and homeless now stand at more than 550 dead from the earthquake and more than 450,000 homeless from the floods, earthquake and hurricane.