Discovery of 12-year-old Frida Sofía in the rubble keeps Mexicans glued to their TVs in hope of finding a child alive where at least 21 died

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A hushed silence has kept falling over the volunteers, soldiers and neighbours congregating outside a collapsed school in southern Mexico City, where rescue workers tried to extract students trapped under the rubble.

A stern-looking officer in jeans and black vest from Mexico’s federal police would raise his fist high above his head signalling silence on Wednesday to enable rescuers with sensitive microphones to listen for cries from the rubble.

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But bystanders and rescuers alike burst into applause at around 4.30pm – with one worker on top of a dump truck full of rubble pumping his fist – as the word spread rescuers had removed two girls from the school.

The applause was premature, however. Rescuers worked into the night to reach a girl called Frida Sofía, 12, who told them she was in contact five friends on the third floor of the school. They would later discover at 11pm she was not on the floor they had thought.

The plight of Frida Sofía captivated Mexicans, who were glued to their TVs as the country’s big broadcasters beamed video live from the school.

It came to represent hope and heartache for Mexicans: the hope of pulling a child from the rubble, but also the heartache of rescuers encountering so many close calls.

The tragedy at the Enrique Rébsamen school, meanwhile bore witness to the scale of the destruction unleashed by the quake. Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, visited the school on Tuesday night, but there was bad news: 21 children were dead, along with four adults. Another 30 people were missing. At least 237 have been confirmed dead across the country.

On Wednesday morning, rumours spread that a teacher and two students had sent text messages from within the rubble, and local television reported that rescuers had spotted a young girl trapped in the building who had moved her hand when they called out to her.

Amid the uncertainty, parents clung to hope that their children had survived. “They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter,” Adriana D’Fargo told Reuters. She had been waiting for hours for news of her seven-year- old.

But some rescuers were doubtful that any more survivors could emerge from the rubble.

“People are saying these children are alive, but that’s unlikely,” said one Mexican government employee working on the rescue. “It’s dangerous in there. We’re advancing little by little, rock by rock.”

The Mexico City earthquake struck on 19 September – the same day a huge tremor wrecked the national capital in 1985, claiming an estimated 10,000 lives. “Another lethal 19-S,” noted the newspaper Milenio. “Another cursed S-19,” read the headline on El Economista. Others were more optimistic, with Reforma running the headline: “Solidarity emerges.”

After the 1985 quake, Mexican authorities were widely criticised for responding slowly to a national disaster; this time again, many in Mexico City felt that they had been left to fend for themselves.

At the noisy police barricade several blocks from the school, a steady stream of volunteers arrived in work clothes and hard hats, carrying picks and shovels and pushing wheelbarrows.

Neighbours came carting jugs of water, trays of tortas (thick sandwiches) and boxes of bananas to refresh the rescuers. Physicians showed up, too.

All were sent to another collapsed building in the area. Several hundred soldiers and civil protection crew members were already picking through the rubble of the school, along with panicked parents and good Samaritans.

“Classes were cancelled so we came to help,” said David Macillas, a student at the Autonomous University of Mexico, who arrived with a full toolkit. The night before, he and a pair of classmates had ventured out to aid in the relief effort – along with thousands of others. “There were already too many people everywhere we went,” Macillas said.

The earthquake inflicted a surprising amount of damage in affluent areas, where buildings are usually sturdier. The Enrique Rébsamen school stood in a solidly middle-class area, with tidy streets, boulevards and American chain stores.

Buildings in many parts of Mexico City – founded by the Aztecs on a lake in the central part of the country, then plundered by the Spanish in 1521 and subsequently drained – swayed violently during earthquakes.

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“Mexico City is like jelly,” said Eduardo Corona, a radio operator with civil protection.

Building codes and construction practices have improved since 1985, along with earthquake preparedness. There was a drill just two hours before the earthquake rocked the city, though some thought citizens were becoming complacent and have acted nonchalantly.

“Maybe the 1985 earthquake was stronger. But this felt even stronger” as the epicentre was closer to Mexico City, said Corona, a musician who moonlights as a civil protection volunteer. “People are a little more prepared. Communications are better. We have more rescue groups.

“But this earthquake was so strong. No one believed this could happen.”