At least 32 people were killed after a massive 8.1 magnitude earthquake, one of the biggest recorded in Mexico, struck off the country's southern coast late on Thursday, causing cracks in buildings and triggering a small tsunami, authorities said. Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a press conference that the quake was the biggest to strike the country in a hundred years, larger even than a huge temblor that struck in 1985, killing thousands. Enrique Pena Nieto: Desafortunadamente, se tiene reporte de personas fallecidas. Mis más sentidas condolencias para sus familiares. Chiapas Governor Manuel Velasco Coello said four people in his state had been reported to have died, including a child, adding that there had been 12 aftershocks. He advised people to evacuate their homes due to the tsunami warning. A number of buildings suffered severe damage in parts of southern Mexico. Some of the worst initial reports came from the town of Juchitan in Oaxaca state, where sections of the town hall, a hotel, a bar and other buildings were reduced to rubble.

Alejandro Murat, the state governor, said 23 deaths were registered in Oaxaca, 17 of them in Juchitan. A spokesman for emergency services said seven people were also confirmed dead in the neighboring state of Chiapas. Earlier, the governor of Tabasco, Arturo Nunez, said two children had died in his state.

Waves

The quake triggered waves as high as 2.3 ft (0.7 m) in Mexico, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Mexican television showed images of the sea retreating about 50 meters, and authorities evacuated some coastal areas. President Enrique Pena Nieto said the tsunami risk on the Chiapas coast was not major. There was no tsunami threat for American Samoa and Hawaii, according to the U.S. Tsunami Warning System. The national disaster agency of the Philippines put the country's eastern seaboard on alert, but no evacuation was ordered.

People gather on a street in downtown Mexico City during an earthquake on September 7, 2017. An earthquake of magnitude 8.0 struck southern Mexico late Thursday and was felt as far away as Mexico City, the US Geological Survey said, issuing a tsunami warning. PEDRO PARDO | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the 8.1 magnitude quake had its epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 54 miles (87 km) southwest of the town of Pijijiapan in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas, at a depth of 43 miles. The USGS has reported at least five aftershocks so far, with magnitudes ranging from 4.9 to 5.7.

"It's a big quake. It's about 70 miles offshore, but it's not an unheard of quake," Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center, told NBC News in a phone interview, noting that the mid-American trench has producing a lot of big quakes in the past. Luis Felipe Puente‏: #Atención en zonas bajas de #Oaxaca y #Chiapas ante probabilidad de oleaje de una altura de hasta de 4.2 metros. "Any time that you have a large quake like this, that is shallow, you can expect aftershocks to occur for even the next several months," he later told CNBC.

eople gather on a street in downtown Mexico City during an earthquake on September 7, 2017. An earthquake of magnitude 8.0 struck southern Mexico late Thursday and was felt as far away as Mexico City, the US Geological Survey said, issuing a tsunami warning. PEDRO PARDO | AFP | Getty Images