1985 Mexico City earthquake

Mexico City is divided into boroughs. Eighty percent of the earthquake damage was confined to four of them: Venustiano Carranza, Cuauhtémoc, Benito Juárez and Gustavo A. Madero.[19] The damage area corresponds to the western part of the lake zone within two to four kilometres (1.2 to 2.5 mi) of the Alameda Central. Nearly all the buildings that collapsed were located in this lake zone that extended from Tlatelolco in the north to Viaducto Miguel Alemán in the south, Chapultepec Park in the west and to a short distance east of the Zócalo or main plaza.[4]

Aftermath of Earthquake, Mexico City.

Cuauhtémoc, which includes the historic downtown, suffered the most damage. In this particular area, 258 buildings completely crumbled, 143 partially collapsed and 181 were seriously damaged. The next seriously affected area was Venustiano Carranza where 83 buildings collapsed, 128 partially collapsed and 2,000 structures were seriously damaged.[20] Damage was localized to the center parts of the city, leaving much of the residential outer rim unscathed, but the damage in the affected area was extensive. Over 720,000 tons of debris was removed during the first six weeks after the event.[19] The Metropolitan Commission for Emergencies of the Federal District reported 2,831 buildings damaged for the entire city: 31% or 880 were completely ruined, 13% were reinhabitable with major repairs and the rest, totaling 1581, were recoverable with minor repairs.[5] This translates to more than 30,000 housing units completely destroyed and another 68,000 units damaged.[19]

One of the most visible government institutions to fall in the event was the tower of Hospital Juárez, one of the oldest hospital institutions in Mexico. It was founded in 1847, converting the old convent of San Pablo to treat wounded soldiers from the Mexican–American War. It originally was called San Pablo Hospital but its name was changed to Juárez Hospital in 1872.[21]

The "Torre de Hospitalización" was built in 1970 with the main building being twelve stories tall. It had two wings, one facing north and the other south, with an inpatient capacity of 536 beds. At the top was a helipad. It was also surrounded by a number of other buildings belonging to the hospital complex such as a blood bank, teaching facilities, offices as well as the original convent. At the time of the earthquake, the hospital was 80% full, and it was shift change time for nurses, doctors and residents. Within minutes, the steel-frame structure collapsed, crushing and trapping many people inside.[21]

Those who were rescued first were taken to another building for treatment, as the ambulances were trapped inside the collapsed tower. The hospital did not have an emergency plan but nonetheless, surviving hospital workers and neighbors quickly improvised, under the management of the hospital, setting up aid stations and scavenging supplies. Rescue workers soon arrived to start digging through the rubble. A second quake made rescue work slower, because of fear of further collapse. Most bodies were identified by personal effects, some by dental records and some were so mangled that they wound up being cremated without ever being identified, due to the lack of morgue facilities. 561 bodies were found and 188 were never identified. 266 were hospital workers and 44 were medical residents. The majority who were rescued were found in the first five days. The number of bodies recovered was high during those first days as well but the numbers dramatically increased between days 17 and 31.[21]

Heavy machinery was unable to get to the site until five days after the earthquake. Numbers of dead did not include unidentified body parts found. Most of the injured had contusion injuries and many suffered from dehydration, with the severity of the dehydration increasing with those rescued later.[21]

However, the most memorable story to come from this event was the rescue of nearly all the newborn babies that were in the nursery at the time. These babies were pulled out of the wreckage mostly unscathed but lost their mothers.[22] The infants were found seven days after the initial event and came to be known as the "Miracle Babies" or the "Miracle of Hospital Juárez", having survived without nourishment, water, warmth or human contact during that time.[23]

Bronze statue of a seamstress at corner of Manuel J Othón and San Antonio Abad at site of collapsed factory

On Manuel José Othón Street, in the Colonia Obrera neighborhood, near Metro station San Antonio Abad, was one of the many garment factories located in the city center area. It was destroyed along with approximately 1,200 other workshops.[18][24]

Called "Topeka", it was one of three buildings that collapsed on this block. The magazine Proceso reported that by the time rescue workers reached the building, the owners were already in a hurry to demolish it, without trying to rescue or recover the workers trapped inside.[25] About 150 bodies of workers had already been pulled from the wreckage by fellow employees using their bare hands.[24]

The collapse of this factory exposed the deplorable conditions to which many of these women were subjected. The building that collapsed, as well as many others, were found to be decrepit. It came to be known that many of the women had to work extended hours with little or no compensation, and few, if any, of the labor laws on the books were being followed. This event made the garment industry a labor embarrassment.[26] All that remains of the factory is a small empty lot with a bronze statue of a woman sewing. Apartments were built on the remainder of the property.[24]

Collapsed Conalep building

The Conalep SPP was a building located between the streets of Iturbide and Humboldt, in the Historic Center of Mexico City, which succumbed to the Richter-scale 8.1-degree earthquake on 19 September 1985.[27]

In this school the classes normally started at 7 o'clock in the morning, so the students were already in class. Some data indicate that around 120 people died and some disappeared in this building. Literally this building was split in two, the part that overlooked Humboldt Street stood and the part that overlooked Iturbide Street collapsed falling floor to floor and pulling the building towards that street.[28]

On Eje Central and Xola Avenue, at the southern end of the lakebed zone was (and is) the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (Ministry of Communication and Transportation), a reinforced concrete structure with its microwave tower. This structure failed, causing the near total collapse of long distance communications between Mexico City and the rest of the world.[7]

The current market at the Conjunto Pino Suarez site.

One of the most spectacular building collapses was that of the Conjunto Pino Suárez, which was a complex of five steel-frame buildings. A 20-story tower, Tower Four, doubled over at the third floor and fell south onto a fourteen-story building.[4] The fall left a huge piece of concrete blocking the road that leads to the Zócalo. People at the scene stated that there was simply no time to run and escape the building's fall. The other three 20-story buildings were closed because of damage, as well as the Metro entrance next door. The building was occupied by family courts and offices of the public defender.[29] The area is now a market.[5]

Plaza of Solidarity at site of former Hotel Regis

The Hotel Regis was built in the beginning of the 20th century as a luxury hotel in neo-Classical style. It had its own cabaret, gourmet restaurant and a small but luxurious cinema with wide reclining armchairs.[30]

It was located at the corner of Balderas and Avenida Juárez in the historic center and completely collapsed within moments of the quake.[5] Shortly after its collapse, it began to burn due to a gas leak, which made it extremely difficult to rescue survivors. Nothing survived of the hotel. The space is now the Plaza de la Solidaridad park.[5] The Museo Mural Diego Rivera on the north side of the park houses a mural by Diego Rivera which was originally housed in the huge Hotel Del Prado across the street. That hotel was irreparably damaged in the earthquake and subsequently demolished.[31]

Mexico City Earthquake, 19 September 1985.

There were two apartment complexes in the area of the city called Tlatelolco to the north of the historic center that became major scenes of disaster, the Conjunto Urbano Nonoalco Tlatelolco and the "Multifamiliares Juárez" near the Metro Centro Médico. Together, these apartment complexes were a large percentage of the 30,000 units lost, with the city losing about 30% of its living space.[18]

Nuevo León apartment building; part of the structure was only slightly damaged, while another part of it collapsed.

Nonoalco Tlatelolco was located on Paseo de la Reforma Norte #668,[32] covering an area of about two km² (0.77 sq mi). It had 102 buildings with seven medical facilities, twenty-two schools and about 500 small businesses, serving the 80,000 people who lived there. Constructed under the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos, it was considered the most important complex of its kind in the country.[33]

In the Conjunto Urbano, two of the three modules of the building called "Nuevo León", at thirteen stories tall, completely collapsed, while the other one was severely damaged. In other buildings, dozens of people terrified by the event jumped from high windows to their deaths, trying to escape.[34] People became trapped in stairwells, elevators and their apartments without any way to contact the outside world.[33] At the collapsed building, lines of 50–100 people passed rubble by hand and buckets, trying to reach victims.[32] During these rescue efforts, a nearby building, called Oaxaca, began to creak noisily, causing everyone to run and abandon the site temporarily, but it did not collapse.[33]

All the buildings suffered damage but along with the collapsed Nuevo León building, buildings such as those called Veracruz, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Oaxaca, Puebla, Jalisco, Churubusco, Guelatao, 2 de Abril, 15 de Septiembre, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, ISSSTE 11, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Ignacio Comonfort, Ignacio M. Altamirano, Jesús Terán, Ponciano Arriaga, Niños Héroes and 20 de Noviembre suffered severe damage such as deeply cracked foundations. In the days after the quake, military and police cordoned off ten buildings to keep people out, leading a number of them to sleep on the streets.[33] Twelve buildings in the complex were so badly damaged that they were demolished in the next six months.[23][35]

Buildings A1, B2 and C3 of the Multifamiliar Juárez complex partially collapsed with a total of nine structures eventually being demolished.[23][35]

Televisa building at Niños Héroes and Chapultepec Ave.

One of the more famous images of the event was the live broadcast of Hoy Mismo, a news program in the Televisa television network, when the earthquake struck. In the video, movement can be seen, especially in the lights above the newscasters. The three newscasters were María Victoria Llamas (substituting for Guillermo Ochoa), Lourdes Guerrero and Juan Dosal. As the movement began Llamas reports grabbing the underside of the desk, and whispering quickly to her colleagues that she hoped no one could see how scared she was.[36] The last image broadcast from the studio was that of Lourdes Guerrero stating "... it's still shaking a little (sigue temblando un poquitito), but we must take it calmly. We will wait just a second so we can keep talking."[29] Then the image disappeared.

The transmission ended because a nearby 10-ton antenna had bent over and crushed parts of Televisa's buildings that were located on Niños Héroes and Dr. Río de la Loza Streets in Colonia Doctores.[29] Everyone ran from the studio but Llamas and Guerrero stayed, hiding under their anchor desks. After the shaking stopped, they both left the Televisa studios through a back door, and hours later they were back on the air in the studios of Canal de las Estrellas to broadcast live what was happening.[36] Some members of the Hoy Mismo staff died, including producer Ernesto Villanueva and engineer David Mendoza Córcega, who had just parked at the Televisa building, but had no time to escape from his car.[29] The falling debris also killed street vendors who worked just outside the studio building.[36] Reconstruction of the studio building began in 1995 and ended in 2000.

• Televicentro (now Televisa Chapultepec)
• Los Televiteatros (now Centro Cultural Telmex)
• Hotel D'Carlo and Hotel Prado, which were located in the Alameda Central area near the Hotel Regis
• Arena Mexico. All the lucha libre events scheduled for that weekend were cancelled.

The region's infrastructure was severely affected. The number of people with potable water went from six million to 90,000.[19] as 6,500 metres (4.0 mi) of primary and secondary water and drainage pipes suffered breaks in 163 places, cutting off water and contaminating it. 516,000 m² (5,550,000 sq ft) of asphalt was damaged, and 137 schools collapsed. The number of jobs lost due to the event was estimated at 200,000. Forty percent of the population was without electricity and seventy percent without telephone service.[19][37]

1,687 school buildings were damaged. Interruption of classes, either to the lack of facilities and/or the need to help with rescue efforts, affected over 1.5 million students.

On the day of the quake, the Metro stopped service and completely shut down for fear of electrocution. This caused people to get out of the tunnels from wherever they were and onto the street to try to get where they were going.[34] At the time, the Metro had 101 stations, with 32 closed to the public in the weeks after the event. On Line 1, there was no service in stations Merced, Pino Suárez, Isabel la Católica, Salto del Agua, Balderas or Cuauhtémoc. On Line 2, there was no service between stations Bellas Artes and Taxqueña. On Line 3 only Juárez and Balderas were closed. Line 4 continued to operate normally. All of the closed stations were in the historic center area, with the exception of the stations of Line 2 south of Pino Suárez. These stations were located above ground. The reason these stations were closed was not due to damage to the Metro proper, but rather because of surface rescue work and clearing of debris.[18]

The area most severely hit by the earthquake had the highest concentration of hospitals. Most of the damage occurred in secondary and tertiary hospitals.[19] Thirteen hospitals of six or more floors were partially or totally destroyed, most of these public institutions. One out of every four then-available beds were lost.[5]

The National Medical Center of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) was considered the most important hospital complex in Latin America with over 2,300 beds and the largest medical library in the country. It had to be evacuated because all of its 25 buildings suffered severe damage. Most of the beds that it lost were dedicated to tertiary, high-technology care. The ISSSTE hospital for government workers lost 36 percent of its capacity. The 2,158 beds of the Ministry of Health (SSA) were lost, representing 43 percent of its capacity in the city. This included the 700 beds lost with the complete collapse of Juárez Hospital and the gynecology-obstetrics tower of the General Hospital of Mexico. In total, the city lost more than 4,000 public hospital beds in the earthquake, severely disrupting these institutions' ability to handle the crisis. In addition, five of the largest private hospitals had to be evacuated. More than 900 patients, physicians, nurses and paramedical workers died in the initial shock.[19]

In contrast, the network of twenty four community general hospitals with 1,600 beds belonging to the city (federal district) were not affected as these were spread out beyond the city center and the old lakebed.[19]

Although much closer to the epicenter, the states of Jalisco, Colima, Guerrero and Michoacán suffered only mild to moderate damage. Landslides caused damage at Atenquique, Jalisco, and near Jala, Nayarit. Rockslides were reported along highways near Ixtapa, Guerrero, with sand volcanos and ground cracks in Lazaro Cardenas. Students at the Universidad de las Américas in nearby Puebla reported feeling as if the cafeteria had been lifted and rocked back and forth, shattering windows and injuring some people but mostly causing panic. A small tsunami caused only mild damage to Lázaro Cárdenas and Zihuatanejo. Some fishing boats were reported missing but these reports were never confirmed.[4] One exceptional case was in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, where about 60 percent of the buildings were destroyed,[4] with about 50 dead.[12] Some damage also occurred as far away as the states of Mexico, Morelos and parts of Veracruz, on the Gulf coast. Coastal and most inland damage was moderated by the fact that most of the west of Mexico sits on bedrock, which serves to transmit the shockwaves without amplifying them. La Villita, and Infiernillo Dams, near the coast, were superficially damaged and undamaged respectively.[4]

Off the coasts of Michoacán and Guerrero, the 19 and 20 September events caused a rupture in the seabed 240 km long and 70 km wide, located between the subduction trench and the coastline. This is an intertidal zone and the event caused widespread mortality in a number of species living in the area such as algae and shellfish.[38]

First ladies Paloma Cordero of Mexico (left) and Nancy Reagan of the United States (right) with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, John Gavin observing the damage done by the earthquake.

The military was deployed to patrol streets to prevent looting after a curfew was imposed,[39] as well as rescue, sanitary efforts and other, with 1,836 soldiers initially sent in and another 1,500 conscripts sent later.[18] The federal government's first public response was President de la Madrid's declaration of a period of mourning for three days starting from 20 September 1985.[34]

These earthquakes created many political difficulties for the then-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) or Institutional Revolutionary Party. The crisis was severe enough to have tested the capabilities of wealthier countries, but the government from local PRI bosses to President de la Madrid himself exacerbated the problem aside from the lack of money.[20] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared it would not request aid; it specifically rejected help from the United States. It was also widely reported in the days after the earthquake that the military assisted factory owners in retrieving their machinery rather than in removing the bodies of dead factory workers.[40] At many levels of the government, who was helped and by how much was determined by one's standing vis-à-vis the PRI. Those belonging to the party received preference and those considered opposition received the runaround. President de la Madrid refused to cut foreign debt payments to use the money to help with the recovery effort. The government's response to the earthquake was widely criticized at various levels of Mexican society, being seen as both authoritarian and incompetent.[20] As most of the collapsed buildings were of recent construction and public works projects, the government was seen at fault due to mismanagement and corruption in these constructions.[12] The government itself realized that it could not handle the crisis alone through already-established institutions and decided to open the process up to "opposition groups".[20]

Housing project by CUD on Dr Andrade Street in Colonia Doctores

On the other hand, the disaster created an opportunity for political opponents, especially at the grassroots level. Much of the community organizing focused on helping those left homeless by the earthquake. The three largest and most effective organizations were based in Tlatelolco and Colonia Roma. These consisted of families from the "Multifamiliar Juárez" housing project, which completely collapsed and the combined colonias (neighborhoods) of Centro, Morelos, Guerrero, Doctores, Obrera, Peralvillo, Asturias, Nicolás Bravo among others which housed the working and lower classes. These groups along with the Sindicato Nacional de Costureras united to form the Coordinadora Única de Damnificados (CUD).[20]

CUD and other popular movement representatives met the head of the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE) Guillermo Carrillo Arena on 27 September 1985. Carrillo Arena at first insisted that the movements incorporate themselves into the PRI before gaining any concessions. This was refused. Many media outlets expressed support for the popular movements and marches like that of 2 October 1985, demanding that the reconstruction process be more "democratic", meaning the inclusion of non-PRI political organizations into the decision-making process. On 11 October 1985, the President granted a seven-minute audience to the heads of a dozen popular movements, which turned into a 45-minute meeting where de la Madrid was handed a document outlining what would remain the movements' core demands: expropriation of all condemned buildings, followed by a "popular" and "democratic" reconstruction project which would include the active participation of the community movement. De la Madrid conceded some with the expropriation of 5,500 properties in the four most affected boroughs.[20]

After the government created the Programa de Renovación Habitacional Popular (PRHP) on 14 October to help deal with the crisis, friction between the government and community groups grew again, PRHP used PRI-membership as a requirement to be included into the census of earthquake victims. More protests followed on 26 October calling for, among other things, the firing of SEDUE head Carrillo Arena. Things got worse through February 1986, mostly due to the ineffectiveness of SEDUE and PRHP. Finally Carrillo Arena was fired from SEDUE and replaced by Manuel Camacho Solís.[20]

In March, only weeks after taking office, Camacho Solís changed the charged atmosphere between SEDUE and the community groups. He actively integrated Tlateloloco citizen groups into a new program meant for that area, defusing the most volatile area of the city. Camacho Solís continued to work to integrate and smooth relations between his agency and the community groups. On 16 May 1986, Camacho Solís met with the heads of all the major groups. He offered a commitment to build 48,000 housing units in one year if the groups would all sign a "Convenio de concertación democrática para la reconstrucción de vivienda" (Democratic agreement for the reconstruction of housing). Basically, this document required the cooperation of community groups in exchange for solid commitments from the agency. All sides would compromise in order to get something done. The deal generally worked; movements like CUD moderated their stances and agencies like SEDUE and PRHP made progress in rebuilding housing, regardless of political affiliation.[20]

The Israeli Rescue Delegation under the command of Col. Avner Shmuelevitz (with the yellow helmet and green uniform).

The Mexican government, thinking that it could handle the situation after the earthquake by themselves, initially refused any foreign aid. As an aftershock struck on 20 September, the Mexican government then announced that it would be willing to accept help. Heavy machinery, medical supplies, and excavation equipment descended into the city to help with rescue efforts. First Lady Nancy Reagan toured Mexico City with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, John Gavin, observing the resulting damage of the earthquake.[41] Few countries sent rescue delegations to support these efforts. One of the prominent group was the Israeli delegation of the Israel Defence Force (I.D.F.), which was enthusiastically welcomed and hosted by the Jewish community of Mexico City.