A strong earthquake jolted Mexico on Thursday, sending people rushing out into the streets of the capital in the middle of the night, days after a pow-erful tremor left at least two people dead.
The epicentre of the 6.9-magnitude quake was near the Pacific coast, 84 kilometres (52 miles) south of Coalcoman in the western state of Michoacan, the national seismological agency reported.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the magnitude at 6.8. Michoacan had been hit by a powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Monday that damaged several thousand buildings and sparked panic more than 400km away in Mexico City.
The latest quake again triggered early warning alarms in the capital at 1:16am (0616 GMT) and caused buildings to shake and sway.
Many people quickly evacuated their homes when the alarms sounded, some still dressed in pa-jamas and carrying their pet dogs.
“We had a 6.9 magnitude aftershock with an epicenter in Coalcoman,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Twitter. “It was felt in Mi-choacan (and the other states of) Colima, Jalisco, Guerrero and Mexico City. So far there are no re-ports of damage,” he added.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said of-ficial helicopters had flown over the city and that there were no initial reports of destruction.
“So far there is no damage in the city after the earthquake,” she tweeted. The quake hit at a depth of 12km, according to the national seismological agency, while USGS estimated the depth at 24km, located about 410km from Mexico City.
Traumatic anniversary
Monday’s tremor came less than an hour after mil-lions of people in Mexico City participated in emer-gency drills on the anniversary of two deadly earth-quakes in 1985 and 2017.—AFP
