Does anybody remember the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City?

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Don J

My wife woke me up on the last day of our honeymoon in Acapulco to tell me that the room was moving. I was sleepy and hung over and hardly noticed anything. On the way back to Mexico City that day, we began to hear news reports of the damage in Mexico City. We stopped at Taxco for lunch in the afternoon and the TV had pictures of the devastation and the rescue efforts going on. At one point there was a scene of a 4-5 story building that was across a street, my wife dropped her fork and said, "that's only a block from my apartment!"

When we drove into the south of the city at about 8:00 in the evening, everything seemed pretty good. There was no damage and we stopped at a Denny's to call my wife's family in the north. We had a coffee but all the phones were down so we continued up Insurgentes towards the center. Suddenly there were more and more emergency vehicles on the road, police, fire, ambulance, army. When we arrived at the area where my wife's apartment was, there were two huge buidings fallen across the road blocking the entire avenue, police, fire and ambulance crews were everywhere. The police told us we couldn't continue north on Insergentes at that point. We had been only two blocks from the apartment but ended up going around and around in the dark and the noise and the dust for almost an hour until we arrived again near to my wife's apartment. We were coming down the street slowly in the dark when suddely a soldier jumped out of nowhere pointing to our cigarettes and yelling in Spanish "no smoking! Gas leaks!"

We found out that everybody had been evacuated from that district, but he gave us permission to visit the apartment for a minute. It was three floors up in the pitch black and there was no power, no water, but the phone worked. We discovered that my wife's whole family was at the parent's house to the north in Lindavista. We worked our way back to the car, somehow found a way around the rubble in the dust and blackness and finally arrived.....

The next day we witnessed the incredible devestation first hand and even saw several quake weakened buildings collapse including a hospital (evacuated, thank God). Then on our way back to the house we were sitting at a major intersection when the second one (a 7.6 "aftershock") hit. The ground literally rolled as if like huge waves on the open sea, the roaring noise from buildings moving, windows rattling and breaking was deafening! That was enough for me! That's all the earthquakes I want to experience for this particular lifetime........

thejaundiced_eye

Whole buildings collapsed everywhere. I can still see a baby's arm sticking out of a pile of rubble. Very very horrible quake. Those poor people.

cmw

I remember it. I was living in San Miguel de Allende, about 180 miles away, and we felt it.

P.S. Reaper, I am not a Mexican. Grow up.

BEL76

It was a horrible experience.

I live in the west side of the city, and since it is a hilly area, we felt it, but didn't realize how bad it was until we started listening to the news.

I volunteered for the Red Cross starting the evening of September 19, and had to drive back and forth from the various morgues. Then I went to a shelter where I got to give food and clothing to the victims.

You could see the devastation everywhere. An experience those of us who lived it will never forget, and definitely something we do not wish to anyone.

At one point, Dan Rather was giving the news and said that Mexico City had vanished from the face of the Earth... that was an exaggeration, to say the least, as many buildings, houses, etc. survived the quake and its aftermaths.

familyunit156

I don't but,Maybe someone does.

tansyangeni

no i was only about 1 or 2 then... that sucks.

G.reaper

YEAH...THE MEXICANS.

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