COLIMA, MEXICO - EARTHQUAKE

COLIMA, MEXICO

EARTHQUAKE

DEATH TOLL RISES TO 29

QUAKES MOVING NORTH???

1-22-2003

updated 1-23-2003

22Jan2003 20:28:22.0 33.9N 118.6W 14 M =3.1 M NEI SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 2136

22Jan2003 20:15:33.0 18.7N 104.3W 10 M =5.1 M NEI NEAR COAST OF JALISCO, MEX2106

22Jan2003 19:41:51.6 21.1N 103.2W 0 mb=5.7 M*MAD JALISCO, MEXICO 2116

22Jan2003 19:41:38.0 18.9N 104.2W 10 M =5.5 M*NEI NEAR COAST OF JALISCO, MEX2021

22Jan2003 19:41:38.9 18.9N 104.2W 10 M =5.5 M*NEI NEAR COAST OF JALISCO, MEX2017

22Jan2003 02:26:42.0 18.6N 104.0W 33 M =4.7 M NEI NEAR COAST OF MICHOACAN, M1711

22Jan2003 02:06:35.0 18.9N 103.8W 33 M =7.8 M*NEI NEAR COAST OF MICHOACAN, M1542

22Jan2003 02:07:08.8 25.8N 101.4W 10 MS=8.1 M*SED NORTHERN MEXICO 1102

22Jan2003 02:07:08.8 25.8N 101.4W 10 mb=6.3 M*SED NORTHERN MEXICO 1036

22Jan2003 02:06:34.0 18.5N 104.1W 33 MS=7.7 M*GSR NEAR COAST OF JALISCO, MEX0513

22Jan2003 02:06:38.6 19.7N 103.5W 33 MS=7.7 M*GSR JALISCO, MEXICO 0418

22Jan2003 02:06:36.0 18.9N 103.9W 33 M =7.8 M*NEI NEAR COAST OF MICHOACAN, M0411

22Jan2003 02:06:25.7 17.7N 105.4W 0 mb=6.6 M*MAD OFF COAST OF JALISCO, MEXI0331

1-21-2003

2003/01/22 02:06 M 7.3 COLIMA, MEXICO Z= 33km 18.81N 103.89W

This information is provided by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

(sedas@ghtmail.cr.usgs.gov)

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake IN COLIMA, MEXICO has occurred at:

18.81N 103.89W Depth 33km Wed Jan 22 02:06:35 2003 UTC

Time: Universal Time (UTC) Wed Jan 22 02:06:35 2003

Time Near Epicenter Tue Jan 21 20:06:35 2003

Location with respect to nearby cities:

30 miles (50 km) ESE of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico (pop 94,000)
30 miles (50 km) SSW of Colima, Colima, Mexico (pop 119,000)
65 miles (105 km) SSW of Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco, Mexico (pop 85,000)
310 miles (500 km) W of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico

BULLETIN PAGE

MEXICO’S NATIONAL SEISMOLOGICAL service put the quake’s magnitude at 7.6. The agency said it struck at 8:07 p.m. in Colima, a small state which includes the port city of Manzanillo, roughly 300 miles (500 kilometers) west of Mexico City.

Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said scientists there calculated the magnitude at 7.8.

“Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage,” Kinerney said.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Jan. 22, 2003) - A powerful earthquake ripped through western and central Mexico, killing at least 21 people, collapsing dozens of houses and leaving the worst-hit state shrouded in darkness with power outages.

The death toll continued to rise Wednesday as emergency crews surveyed the full extent of the damage hours after the ground had stopped shaking.

The quake struck at 8:07 p.m. Tuesday in Colima, a small state that includes the port city of Manzanillo, about 300 miles west of Mexico City.

Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6, but the U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.

''Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage,'' said U.S. Geological Survey spokesman Butch Kinerney.

Colima Gov. Fernando Moreno Pena said 19 people were killed, nine in the capital city of Colima and 10 others elsewhere in his state. He did not provide details, but radio reports said most of the victims died after portions of office and residential buildings collapsed near the center of Colima City.

Nearly all of the state remained without electricity and phone service early Wednesday, Moreno Pena said.

Melchor Usua Quiroz, head of the state's civil defense authorities, told the government news agency Notimex that the quake damaged homes and businesses and briefly left several people trapped in elevators across Colima.

In Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and Mexico's second-largest city, the quake leveled 40 homes and left more than 100 people homeless, authorities said.

An 85-year-old woman in the town of Zapotitlan died after she rushed out of her house and was crushed by a falling security wall that had ringed her yard. A 1-year-old girl also died in Zapotitlan, but the circumstances surrounding her death remained unclear, authorities said early Wednesday.

President Vicente Fox ordered the military to search for damage near the quake's epicenter, a region that included remote villages in coastal areas of Jalisco and Colima.

The quake swayed buildings, briefly knocked out power and telephone service and sent panicked residents running into the streets in Mexico City, but officials said there were no reports of deaths or serious damage there.

''Fortunately there does not appear to be generalized damage in the city,'' Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard told reporters.

Immediately after the quake, police cars drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City with sirens flashing, asking people over loudspeakers: ''Is everything OK?''

They encountered residents gathered in small groups, many shaking with fear. Others raced to escape the earthquake's wrath so quickly that they had no shoes to cover their bare feet or had grabbed little more than a blanket to guard against the night's chill.

''I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared,'' said Victor Morales, a 46-year-old apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighborhood. ''I stayed calm because I trust in God.''

Some earthquakes of magnitude 7 have caused massive damage, but the effect of a quake can be affected by many factors, including its depth and the sort of earth through which it passes as it moves away from the epicenter.

Mexico City is built atop a former lake bed in a mountain valley that acts as a sort of amplifier for the motion of quakes.

The last substantial earthquake in the Colima area was in 1995. It registered 8.0 magnitude and killed 49 people. At least 100 people were injured in that quake, which was a little northwest of Tuesday's earthquake.

AP-NY-01-22-03 0538EST

Quake in West-Central Mexico Kills 21

Wednesday January 22, 2003 7:10 AM

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A powerful earthquake shook west-central Mexico late Tuesday, sending panicked residents spilling into the streets of major cities and knocking out power to many areas. Twenty-one people were killed in the western states of Colima and Jalisco, officials said.

Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6. The agency said it struck at 8:07 p.m. in Colima, a small state which includes the port city of Manzanillo, roughly 300 miles west of Mexico City.

Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said scientists there calculated the magnitude at 7.8.

``Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage,'' Kinerney said.

Colima Gov. Fernando Moreno Pena said 19 people were killed in the quake, nine in the capital city of Colima and 10 others elsewhere in his state. He did not provide details, but radio reports said most of the victims were killed when portions of office and residential buildings collapsed near the center of Colima City.

It was difficult to communicate with all of Colima by telephone, partly due to overloaded lines, but Melchor Usua Quiroz, head of the state's civil defense authorities, told the government news agency Notimex that the quake damaged homes and businesses and briefly left several people trapped in elevators across Colima.

In neighboring Jalisco state, civil defense authorities said an 85-year-old woman in the town of Zapotitlan died after she rushed out of her house and was crushed by a falling security wall that had ringed her yard.

A 1-year-old girl also died in Zapotitlan, but the circumstances surrounding her death remained unclear, authorities said early Wednesday.

In Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital and Mexico's second-largest city, authorities said the quake destroyed 40 homes and left more than 100 people homeless. Doctors treated dozens of people for panic attacks but there were no reports of physical injuries.

President Vicente Fox ordered the military to search for damage in the region, which includes remote villages, and to offer aid to those affected.

The president's office, however, said an early inspection by the Mexican Navy found only power outages.

In Mexico City, people rushed into the streets, many of them barefoot or wrapped in blankets against the chill.

Police cars drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City with sirens flashing, asking people over loudspeakers: ``Is everything OK?''

``I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared,'' said Victor Morales, 46, an apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City. ``I stayed calm because I trust in God.''

Mexico City is built atop a former lakebed in a mountain valley which acts as a sort of amplifier for the motion of quakes.

The last substantial earthquake in the Colima area was in 1995. It registered 8 magnitude and killed 49 people. At least 100 people were injured in that quake, which was a little northwest of Tuesday's earthquake.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

The Richter magnitude scale was developed in 1935; each whole-number step in the scale corresponds to release of 30 times more energy than the amount associated with the preceding whole number.

Some earthquakes of 7.0-magnitude have caused massive damage, but the effect of a quake can be affected by many factors, including its depth and the sort of earth through which it moves away from the epicenter.

Mexico City is built atop a former lakebed which acts as a sort of loudspeaker that magnifies the sensation of quakes.

Deadly quake shakes Mexico

Wednesday, January 22, 2003 Posted: 10:01 AM EST (1501 GMT)

Colima resident Manuel Nestas looks over the damage done to his house by the earthquake.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The Mexican government dispatched small aircraft to remote areas of the country Wednesday to assess damage after a powerful earthquake killed as many as 23 people, injured 160 and caused widespread destruction.

At least 21 people died in the coastal state of Colima, said Fernando Moreno Pena, Colima's governor. Mexican officials said two others died in the state of Jalisco. (Map)

The government said the exact death toll won't be known until later Wednesday.

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, put the quake's magnitude at 7.8, but the National Seismological Center in Mexico City calculated a magnitude of 7.6.

The Geological Survey said the quake was centered near the Pacific Coast around Colima, about 30 miles east-southeast of the city of Manzanillo. It struck Tuesday at 8:06 p.m. local time (9:06 p.m. EST). The agency initially reported a magnitude of 7.3 but revised the number after additional calculations.

An earthquake with a magnitude of more than 7.0 is capable of widespread and heavy damage.

The quake was felt more than 300 miles away in the capital, Mexico City.

Damage had been reported in the states of Colima, Michoacan and Jalisco, and the quake "may have caused substantial damage and casualties due to its location and size," the U.S. Geological Survey Web site said.

Residents throughout Colima reported power outages. Landslides had knocked out utilities in some areas, said Carlos Gelista, Mexico's director of emergency management for the Civil Protection Agency.

A man in Comala, seven miles north of the capital, Colima, said the quake was strong but lasted less than a minute. He said the electricity was out for a couple of hours and damage in the community was minor.

In Mexico City, buildings swayed, and residents gathered in the streets as a precaution. There were reported power outages in the city.

The coastal state of Colima was hardest hit.

Police cars with lights flashing drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City asking residents over loudspeakers if they were OK, according to The Associated Press.

Some people had fled so quickly they had no shoes and had little more than blankets to protect them from the cold night air, the AP reported.

"I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared," Victor Morales, a 46-year-old apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighborhood, told the AP. "I stayed calm because I trust in God."

"This is the largest earthquake in this general area since a magnitude 8.0 event on October 9, 1995," the U.S. Geological Survey said. "The 1995 earthquake killed at least 49 people and caused extensive damage in Colima and Jalisco."

Posted on Wed, Jan. 22, 2003

Death toll mounts in Mexico quake

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) - A powerful earthquake ripped through western and central Mexico, killing at least 23 people, collapsing dozens of houses and leaving the worst-hit state shrouded in darkness with power outages.

The death toll continued to rise today as emergency crews surveyed the full extent of the damage hours after the ground had stopped shaking. Adan de la Paz of the Mexican Red Cross said 21 people had died in Colima, a small state about 300 miles (500 kms) west of Mexico City, and two others were killed in the neighboring state of Jalisco.

The quake struck at 8:07 p.m. Tuesday and was centered near the port of Manzanillo in Colima. The government declared a state of emergency in Colima today.

Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6, but the U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.

``Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage,'' said U.S. Geological Survey spokesman Butch Kinerney.

Colima Gov. Fernando Moreno Pena said most of the deaths in his state had occurred in the capital city, also called Colima. He did not provide details, but radio reports said most of the victims died after portions of office and residential buildings collapsed near the center of Colima City.

State officials were apparently worried that more victims may be trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Colima.

``The (Jalisco) governor has sent a team of 24 people specially trained in rescuing people missing or trapped in rubble in this kind of tragedy, because our brothers in Colima requested that,'' said Trinidad Lopez Rivas, Jalisco civil defense director.

Nearly all of Colima state remained without electricity and phone service early today, Moreno Pena said. Television images from the state's capital showed walls collapsed into heaps, and cars crushed by bricks and concrete.

In Guadalajara, the capital of neighboring Jalisco state and Mexico's second-largest city, the quake leveled 40 homes and left more than 100 people homeless, authorities said.

An 85-year-old woman in the town of Zapotitlan died after she rushed out of her house and was crushed by a falling security wall that ringed her yard. A 1-year-old girl also died in Zapotitlan, but the circumstances surrounding her death remained unclear.

President Vicente Fox ordered the military to search for damage near the quake's epicenter, a region that included remote villages in coastal areas of Jalisco and Colima.

``Fortunately there does not appear to be generalized damage in the city,'' Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard told reporters.

Immediately after the quake, police cars drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City with sirens flashing, asking people over loudspeakers: ``Is everything OK?''

They encountered residents gathered in small groups, many shaking with fear. Others raced outside so quickly that they had no shoes to cover their bare feet or had grabbed little more than a blanket to guard against the night's chill.

``I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared,'' said Victor Morales, a 46-year-old apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighborhood. ``I stayed calm because I trust in God.''

Mexico City is built atop a former lake bed in a mountain valley that acts as a sort of amplifier for the motion of quakes.

Earthquake Toll in Mexico Now 29; Leader Declares Emergency

By TIM WEINER

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 22, 2003 — President Vicente Fox declared a state of emergency today in Colima, a coastal state hit overnight by a powerful earthquake that rolled across central Mexico from the Pacific Ocean, killing at least 29 people and rattling millions of Mexico City residents.

"This was an earthquake of great magnitude," Mr. Fox said. "Luckily, its consequences were not as grave as could have been expected."

Red Cross officials and civil defense officers reported 26 deaths in Colima, where at least 166 homes were badly damaged or destroyed, two deaths in the neighboring state of Jalisco and one in the state of Michoacán. Most of the dead lived in adobe buildings, and most were very poor, very old or very young, officials said.

Roughly 300 injuries were reported, mostly broken bones. Rescue crews continued searching for more victims in Colima today.

The quake struck at 8:07 p.m. First reports placed its magnitude at either 7.6 or 7.8 and its epicenter in the ocean about about 30 miles from the port of Manzanillo.

In Colima, one of Mexico's smallest states, about 300 miles due west of Mexico City, "the destruction is like a war zone," said a Red Cross official, Enrique de Jesús Rivera. He said in an interview that the death toll could increase as rescuers poked through the rubble of shattered homes and began reaching more isolated villages.

Gov. Fernando Moreno said 18 of the 26 deaths in his state were in the capital, also called Colima, about 32 miles north-northeast of the epicenter. The Mexican Army set up six shelters to house at least 2,000 people tonight.

A series of aftershocks shook the region into this afternoon.

"We are all waiting for the next one to hit," said Arturo Briz, a chauffeur in the city of Colima.

The civil defense director in Colima, César Espinosa Solarzano, said about 40 percent of the structures in the capital suffered some damage, mostly old adobe homes in the northeast of the city. In a telephone interview, he said deaths had been registered in the capital and in outlying villages.

Mexico's National Seismological Service recorded the magnitude of the earthquake at 7.6. The United States Geological Survey placed its intensity at 7.8, which would make it the second-strongest to have struck Mexico since 1985.

The 1985 quake, one of the most devastating of the 20th century, measuring 8.1, killed at least 10,000 people, injured 30,000, caused $5 billion worth of damage and left 100,000 homeless in Mexico City alone.

In the capital, millions felt Tuesday night's quake and many, remembering its deadly predecessor, fled to the streets. Power and telephone service were disrupted in Mexico City and in many other municipalities. But the quake, felt for about 45 seconds, caused little harm in the capital beyond racing pulses.

Colima last suffered a major earthquake in 1995. That one killed 49 people, including 18 who died in the collapse of the eight-story Costa Real resort hotel in Manzanillo.

In Jalisco, to the north of Colima, the earthquake killed a woman of 85 and a 1-year-old girl in the town of Zapotitlán, said the state civil defense chief, Trinidad López Rivas.

In the state capital, Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city with about six million residents, at least 40 homes were damaged and 100 people left homeless, state officials said. Bells fell from the tower of a colonial church in the city, more than 100 miles from the epicenter.

Posted on Thu, Jan. 23, 2003

Mexico begins relief efforts after 7.8 earthquake

At least 29 people are dead and nearly 200 injured after temblor in Colima state; 10,000 reported homeless

By Reed Johnson

LOS ANGELES TIMES

COLIMA, Mexico - Grieving relatives laid coffins in the streets here Wednesday as Mexico began its recovery from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed at least 29 people, injured 190 others and reduced parts of this capital to heaps of brick and adobe rubble.

Overall, Mexico was lucky, because a combination of geography and seismology blunted the effects of one of the strongest earthquakes to strike the nation since a magnitude 8.2 earthquake devastated Mexico City in 1985.

The epicenter was about 60 miles off the coast of sparsely populated Colima state, and the westward slant of the shock waves meant that much of the temblor's energy was sent harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.

About 10,000 people were reported to have lost their homes -- a tiny fraction of the population of the 13 states that felt the quake across western and central Mexico at 8:07 p.m. local time Tuesday.

Even in Colima, the hardest-hit city, most of the damage was limited to adobe and brick houses built in recent decades in and around the historic central core, which dates to 1522.

Other parts of the city, home to 160,000 people, largely escaped serious structural damage.

In the city center Wednesday, army and civilian crews worked methodically, knocking over structures that were about to fall and carting away debris.

Ruben Barajas Pizano, a Colima state disaster relief coordinator, said he didn't believe any more people were trapped in the debris.

The 45-second temblor terrified people in a seismically active region who know the toll a quake can take. For those who lost houses or loved ones, it was a devastating event.

More than 16 aftershocks, including two that registered 5.8 and 5.3 magnitude, hit the region Wednesday afternoon, causing little additional damage but rattling the nerves of thousands of residents.

President Vicente Fox, who toured the city center Wednesday, said the "consequences of the quake were fortunately not as grave as had been expected."

Deployed by the president, the Mexican army set up six shelters and sent dozens of medics, communications technicians and engineers to the area.

Colima Gov. Fernando Moreno declared an emergency in the state's five hardest-hit towns to speed the flow of a promised $2 million for reconstruction of housing.

Schools throughout the state were closed at least until Monday so authorities can inspect them for damage.

Fox said resort hotels along the coast suffered no damage that should deter tourists, although hotels in the coastal town of Manzanillo, 35 miles southeast of here, reported some cracked walls and broken windows. Rockslides triggered by the quake closed Manzanillo's port.

Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6, but the U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.

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