'People were screaming': 'La Voz' reporter describes powerful Mexico City earthquake

Daniel Gonzalez | The Republic | azcentral.com

PHOENIX — Trees swayed. Cars crashed into each other. People ran out of their houses, some wearing only towels, when Tuesday's 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City, killing at least 217 people.

"The ground shook very strongly," said Diana Garcia, the Mexico City correspondent for La Voz, a Spanish-language publication of The Arizona Republic. "People were screaming."

Garcia, 37, was sitting on a curb with two other reporters in the Santa Maria La Ribera neighborhood near the heart of Mexico City, watching a telenovela being filmed when the earthquake hit at about 1:15 p.m. Garcia was there because the show's director was to announce a benefit concert for people affected by the earthquake two weeks ago that shook Oaxaca.

"A lot of people started to run," Garcia said.

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She doesn't know how long the earthquake lasted, but it seemed like a long time, perhaps five minutes, she said.

Afterward, she and the other reporters stood in the street hugging, while others around them prayed. A few blocks away some houses had collapsed.

Garcia immediately thought of her 6-year-old son, Carlo Emiliano. He was in school at the time. His classroom is on the third floor. Garcia thought about hopping in her car, and driving over. But the earthquake had knocked out power in many parts of the city. With no traffic lights, traffic turned into gridlock.

Streets clogged in Mexico City after 7.1-magnitude earthquake Ambulances use bus lanes to navigate through streets clogged with traffic and pedestrians following the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that rocked Mexico City Sept. 19, 2017. Diana Garcia/azcentral.com

She called her dad and asked him to rush to the school, which is near their home in the Ticoman neighborhood just blocks from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most important Catholic shrine in Mexico, and a major tourist attraction.

She found out later that a desk had fallen onto her son's head and injured his eye.

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"They put the students under the desks and it fell over," Garcia said. "It's just a bump," she said.

Four hours after the earthquake, Garcia was still trying to drive home through heavy traffic, normally a 20-minute drive.

"The transit system is shut down and the streets are filled with people walking," she said. "You can hear helicopters hovering over the damage and the sound of ambulances."

As she inched along, Garcia snapped photos of some of the damage. One showed a large apartment building that had been heavily damaged. Another showed a gaping hole filled with rubble where a building had collapsed.

She also shot video showing streets clogged with traffic and filled with pedestrians.

"A lot of people are staying outside of their houses because they are afraid of aftershocks," Garcia said.

Garcia said many people were aware that Tuesday's earthquake occurred on the 32nd anniversary of a powerful earthquake that killed thousands of people.

"A lot of people have gone into a state of hysteria because they remember that tragedy," she said.

Follow Daniel González on Twitter: @azdangonzalez