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Around 100 children are reportedly missing after a school building collapsed in a powerful earthquake in Mexico.

Firefighters have been joined by police and dozens of volunteers in a desperate search for survivors among the debris.

Enrique Rebsamen, a four-storey building for primary and secondary school children, was reduced to rubble after the 7.1 magnitude quake tore through the capital Mexico City on Tuesday.

There were reports of two children saved and one body found so far.

Desperate locals took to social media to call for help as well as building equipment to help those trapped.

According to reports, around 400 children attended the school and 100 remain unaccounted for.

(Image: @tribunacampeche/Twitter) (Image: @tribunacampeche/Twitter) (Image: @tribunacampeche/Twitter)

Reporter Julio Ibanez tweeted footage of volunteers holding up handwritten signs with the names of children pulled from the wreckage.

"Please RT so that their parents known they've been found," he added.

One woman took to Facebook to appeal for help locating her missing nephew while another man stood in the street with names of children on a handmade sign.

A post being widely shared on social media reads: "Friends who are the south of Mexico City your help is needed, please!

"There are children beneath the rubble at the Enrique Rebsamen school."

(Image: Twitter/@julioiba) (Image: Twitter/@julioiba)

"If anyone is nearby please help!

"Share with as many people as possible - there are desperate families!"

The earthquake hit on on the anniversary of a devastating tremor in 1985 which left thousands dead.

The death toll so far is believed to be at least 93.

The quake sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets as skyscrapers swayed and bridges collapsed at around 1.15pm local time.

Hospital staff evacuated wards across the city, shading babies in incubators under trees as horrified patients watched brick walls crumble around them.

The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was centred near the Puebla state town of Raboso, about 76 miles south east of Mexico City.

The capital's mayor said there were reports of people trapped in collapsed and burning buildings.

(Image: AFP) (Image: REUTERS)

(Image: AFP) (Image: @CarlosTorresF_/twitter)

(Image: AFP) (Image: AFP)

Thousands of people hugged to calm one another other along the central Reforma Avenue as alarms blared and traffic stopped around the Angel of Independence monument.

In the Roma neighbourhood, which was struck hard by the 1985 quake, piles of stucco and brick fallen from building facades littered the streets.

At a nearby market, a worker in a hardhat walked around the outside warning people not to smoke as a smell of gas filled the air.

Market trader Edith Lopez, 25, was in a taxi a few blocks away when the quake struck.

She said she saw glass bursting out of building windows and was anxiously trying to locate her children, who she had left in the care of her disabled mother.

(Image: AFP)

(Image: AFP)

Pictures fell from office building walls, objects were shaken off of flat surfaces and computer monitors toppled over.

Some people dived for cover under desks and local media broadcast video of whitecap waves churning the city's normally placid canals of Xochimilco as boats bobbed up and down.

Earlier in the day, workplaces across the city held preparation drills on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, a magnitude 8.1 temblor, which killed thousands of people and devastated large parts of Mexico City.

(Image: AFP) (Image: AFP)

(Image: REUTERS)

TV images showed a multi-story building in the capital with a middle floor collapsed as sirens blared from first responders rushing to the scene.

Another video showed the side of a government building sheering off and falling into the street as bystanders screamed.

In Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City, there were unconfirmed reports on local radio of people trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

(Image: AFP) (Image: REUTERS)

A civil protection official told local TV an unspecified number of people were trapped inside various buildings that caught fire in Mexico City.

Mexican TV and social media showed cars crushed by debris.

Many people fled into the streets, and electricity and phone lines were down in parts of the capital.

"We got out really fast, leaving everything as it was and just left," said Rosaura Suarez, as she stood with a crowd on the street.

(Image: AFP)

Much of Mexico City is built on former lakebed, and the soil is known to amplify the effects of earthquakes even hundreds of miles away.

The latest earthquake comes 11 days after a huge temblor killed 96 people.

Today's quake hit 5 miles (8km) southeast of Atencingo in the state of Puebla at a depth of 32 miles (51 km).

The epicentre was near the town of Raboso - 76 miles south east of Mexico City.

(Image: AFP)

The Mexican capital is home to over 20 million people.

The extent of damage or injuries is not yet immediately clear.

A powerful 8.1 quake hit Mexico earlier this month, killing at least 98 people.

(Image: AFP) (Image: AFP) (Image: AFP)

(Image: @AdiAlsaid/Twitter)

(Image: emsc-csem.org)

The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early morning of September 19 at 7am (CST) with a moment magnitude of 8.0.

The event caused serious damage to the Greater Mexico City area and the deaths of at least 5,000 people.

The sequence of events included a foreshock of magnitude 5.2 that occurred the prior May, the mainshock on 19 September, and two large aftershocks.

(Image: AFP) (Image: AFP)

The first of these occurred on September 20 with a magnitude of 7.5 and the second occurred seven months later on April 30 1986 with a magnitude of 7.0.

They were located off the coast along the Middle America Trench, more than 220 miles (350 kilometres) away, but the city suffered major damage due to its large magnitude and the ancient lake bed that Mexico City sits on.

The event caused between three and four billion USD in damage as 412 buildings collapsed and another 3,124 were seriously damaged in the city.