With faces painted as skulls and bodies made up like skeletons, throngs of performers marched through the streets of Mexico City on Saturday in a Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) parade in a country still mourning the nearly 500 people killed in back-to-back earthquakes last month.

Thousands of onlookers cheered and applauded as a giant raised fist constructed out of hard hats and pickaxes led the procession, signifying the resilient spirit of a country hit with one of its worst calamities in decades.

An 8.2-magnitude quake — the most powerful to hit Mexico in a century — struck off the Pacific Coast shortly before midnight on Sept. 7, setting off tsunami warnings, burying hundreds of people under collapsed buildings and scattering frightened residents into the streets.