mexico city earthquake 1985 facts

As Mexico City is situated on an ancient lakebed plateau composed of mostly dirt and sand, the ground is less stable than bedrock, thus leading to major damage. So they would have everything on the front page with about three lines of type, and then every story would continue in a different part of the paper. I am sure the implosions, which were successful, saved many lives. (The disaster exposed the fact that government corruption had allowed for lax enforcement of building codes.) It shook for thirty or forty seconds. As Mexico City is situated on an ancient lakebed plateau … It was all got up in a few days as you might imagine right after the earthquake. The first implosions were the biggest event of the week. Gavin felt that sometimes you had to deal publicly with them…. So, it may be that people to people relations were actually improved…, Ambassador G. Philip Hughes …The only untoward thing was the earthquake. He had a tendency shared by almost all politically appointed ambassadors, including [Patrick] Lucey at times, to sometimes speak out on Mexican affairs as if they were presidents of Mexico rather than ambassadors to the country. In the beginning we prepared sit-reps [situation reports, i.e., cables done during a crisis] on an hourly basis. The Marine guards of course were there. Mexico City Earthquake, 1985. One of the things that was most important were inflatable bladders for water. Actually, that earthquake, and I think perhaps Gavin’s taking a very out-front role and really expressing the damage and so on, the follow up to that by the Mexican citizenry I think really led in some interesting and strange way to the ultimate defeat of the PRI several years later. I believe it was 30 or 40,000. I don’t think I succeeded and he had to go to the Foreign Secretary, and finally to President de la Madrid. All Rights Reserved. They were busy digging; it was dark. But then I began to see the destruction from the windows and we began to get reports that parts of the city had been seriously damaged, with many major buildings downed. To this day, the Mexicans say it was less than 20,000. And neither one of these figures probably counted Mexican-Americans or Mexicans that have family in the States. Within a few more hours I learned that this was probably going to happen so we turned to and set up the visit. It was very interesting, and Gavin was not without his role in all of that. And, secondly, he observed that the pattern of destruction was very uneven, so while it was worse in some sections of the city than others, it was not uniform. Kramer, a. The 2017 Puebla earthquake struck at 13:14 CDT (18:14 UTC) on 19 September 2017 with an estimated magnitude of M w 7.1 and strong shaking for about 20 seconds. That one wiped out much of the remaining communications and then collapsed many buildings that had been severely damaged the day before. I was lucky in that the phones were still working and I called home and found that my family and the house were unharmed. One of the first things that he did, he was very concerned and he was very interested and he wanted to make sure that appropriate assistance came from the United States. Within the next couple hours, we made sure the local Mexican staff was ok. ), Stanley Zuckerman  But the Mexican people recognized how much the Americans helped by sending assistance and helping in the reconstruction. Then I went back to the airport at 3 a.m. to meet Ambassador Gavin. I also remember some cases where overwork and exhaustion caused Embassy people to almost crack. Mexico certainly did not plan for earthquakes…. On this day in 1985, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake rocked Mexico City and its surrounding environs at 9:17 a.m. EDT (7:17 a.m. local time). Assistance was just not flowing and not flowing fast enough, and people were without electricity and they were without water and they were without homes, and they began for the first time to organize themselves, in neighborhood groups and community groups, to do something about this. Then we went to the embassy and she gave a speech. Ambassador Gavin was taken up in a helicopter the day after the quake to survey the damage in order to get a sense of the assistance that would be needed. There was no time for an advance visit or anything. On the other hand, on one of the first days, I called a Congressman in Los Angeles and asked him not to send a plane load of supplies, because they were not things that were needed. Problems were compounded because the Government disaster relief office was destroyed and several of the largest hospitals collapsed during the first day, including the Juarez General Hospital where I went with the Ambassador three days later while they were still rescuing survivors, although each hour the number of corpses rose and survivors dropped. They would sometimes report his criticisms, but you would sort of lose the train of it before you got done. The earthquake resulted in around $3 billion to $4 billion in damage. Mexico City was still the political, geographical, and cultural center of the country. The digging went on amid continuing screams from within the fallen buildings. Sally Grooms Cowal Western Mexico is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes with the Pacific plate and Cocos plate moving against the North American plate actively. So a lot of what we did in USIS, we would also sponsor seminars for journalists and so on. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! These was a great crowd of people milling around. The death toll, a number which is disputed, is most often cited to be 10,000 people, but many agree that the number could be as high as 40,000. We just sent advance teams directly to Mexico to get this set up on about 48-hour’s notice and coordinated with the embassy to work out a schedule which mainly involved the First Lady arriving, going to Los Pinos, meeting with de la Madrid, giving him the check, touring some sites of devastation around the city, meeting with the embassy staff and saying some words with them and then flying on to California. The leading newspaper of the day was called Excélsior, and it was truly an awful newspaper. I think that on the second day shipments were already beginning to come in from the States. I said that the last thing in the world the Mexicans need is the First Lady coming to Mexico right now. Earthquake shakes Mexico City On September 19, 1985, a powerful earthquake strikes Mexico City and leaves 10,000 people dead, 30,000 injured and thousands more homeless. I don’t remember feeling sorry for myself. Some of these buildings were ready to fall down and they were dangerous. The day after the earthquake I was called at the NSC and asked how do you think the Mexicans would react to the First Lady coming to Mexico? Almost always no smoke, no dust, and every brick falls right where it’s supposed to. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that those were buildings that were probably built not to the standards which were in print, but not always observed, of how buildings ought to be built in a seismic zone. You had one sentence. He got the military to get him a helicopter, and he wanted to personally survey the damage in Mexico City, not without reason, again. The city has ...read more, From the stone cities of the Maya to the might of the Aztecs, from its conquest by Spain to its rise as a modern nation, Mexico boasts a rich history and cultural heritage spanning more than 10,000 years. I didn’t think that was very strange. That was due to a tremendous effort on part of Embassy people to coordinate the activity, efforts which of course were invisible to the outside…. Find a certified presentation designer for your next project on Prezi Mexico City earthquake of 1985, also called Michoacán earthquake of 1985, severe earthquake that occurred on September 19, 1985, off the coast of the Mexican state of Michoacán, causing widespread death and injuries and catastrophic damage in Mexico’s capital, Mexico City. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake was definitely one of the most devastating natural disasters in history. I was amazed. Nancy Reagan’s trip was I think her first foray into a foreign policy role. Since I’d gone through earthquakes in San Francisco, and the big one in Caracas in our first assignment, I wasn’t scared or nervous. And we began to prepare cables about the situation. Did you know? It was a Foreign Service Officer who had to load these sacks and take an airplane at night. Partly because of inadequate building codes, the … Ambassador Gavin had to go to de La Madrid on some issues in order that we could help effectively. They were perturbed at the Ambassador’s estimate for some reason, but I am convinced the real total was closer to his estimate. We probably had 25,000 resident Americans and many, many American tourists. I told them we would need them in the Embassy, but their personal considerations were clearly more important…. The Mexicans were profoundly dilatory about taking us up on our offers of help, and she wasn’t going to solve that problem. He got a helicopter and he flew over and counted the number of buildings down, and many of them were apartment buildings. Considerable damage and injuries were reported in other parts of the Umbria region. John Gavin’s nomination by the President caused consternation and some disdain in the Mexican press and the public because he was identified as an actor. This detailed timeline of Mexican history explores such themes as the ...read more, A country rich in history, tradition and culture, Mexico is made up of 31 states and one federal district. HUGHES:  During the brief period that I was on the NSC staff in connection with Mexico, my main activities were planning a trip that Nancy Reagan made to Mexico and accompanying her to give a symbolic donation of a million dollars to the victims of the September 1985 Mexico City earthquake and dealing with a presidential phone call between de la Madrid and Ronald Reagan. So you’d look on a block and three buildings would be standing, and two buildings, like collapsed teeth, would be down between the three standing buildings. Yes, it was not the Soviet Union. His mother was born in Mexico, in Sonora. Mission Mandate: To airlift aid to Mexico City after a major earthquake. PASTORINO: Mexico was then ending the Lopez-Portillo Administration, and entering into the six year term (sexenio) of Miguel De La Madrid. ZUCKERMAN:  It was again a period when a chargé ran the Embassy, and John Ferch had gone on to Cuba as head of our mission there and later became our Ambassador in Honduras, and there was a rather long gap before John Gavin, Reagan’s appointee as Ambassador, was confirmed and arrived on the job. Fortunately, the quake was early enough in the morning that people weren’t yet in their offices. In the aftermath of the earthquake, about 3,500 buildings had collapsed or were seriously damaged. I went back inside the Embassy and upstairs to my fourth floor office after the twenty minutes like I had planned. It had a magnitude of 8.1, and the number of people killed added up to 10,000 deaths. However, much of the damage was in Mexico City, which was constructed on an ancient lake bed whose soft sediments amplify seismic waves. Mexico City Earthquake: September 19, 1985, 1985 Mexico City Earthquake: Slow Government Response. Nonetheless, I mean, it came across to the Mexican people that he was someone who was not their friend. She didn’t mingle with people in the way the Bushes did typically on their airplane. She is not going to be able to do anything material. To get a better idea about the high stakes treatment. Mexico City is located at an elevation of more than 7,300 feet above sea level. Ambassador Gavin was on his way to Europe on vacation and Deputy Chief of Mission [DCM] Morris Busby was in Northern Mexico on fisheries negotiations. Nancy Reagan’s briefing was very brief and not deeply substantive and she mainly spent the flights both to Mexico and California closeted in her state room. It turned out I was in charge of the Embassy. The Embassy had a telephone network, in which everyone calls everyone else in a certain order. Any aid that we gave would be only a symbolic gesture, a drop in the bucket. What could one do to stop the quakes? I remember helping develop a security plan of where to put the police lines to keep the people an appropriate distance away. To this day I can’t remember a word I said. Finally, after some trying, some genius in our Communications section patched me through to Washington through Louisiana, and Atlanta. The water system was destroyed in much of the city. The building shook like hell. Robert S. Pastorino But, people said I calmly addressed the group, telling them what had happened as best we could determine. On September 21, 1999, an earthquake in Taiwan killed more than 2,400 people, destroyed or damaged thousands of buildings and left an estimated 100,000 people homeless. 1985-09-19 13:17:47 UTC 8.0 magnitude, 27 km depth Arteaga, Michoacán, Mexico 8.0 magnitude earthquake 1985-09-19 13:17:47 UTC at 13:17 September 19, 1985 UTC I remember we let every American, tourist or resident, come to the Embassy and write a one-page telegram. COWAL: Well, they would sometimes mention it, and that would cause problems, or they wouldn’t mention it, and that would cause problems, of course, with the embassy. It was still peaceful. I remember Dan Rather telling the world that Mexico City was completely destroyed. It was growing in population at a tremendous rate, and the economy was booming. The aftershock was almost as strong as the original quake and may have done even more damage outside of the city than the original shock had done. The number of Mexicans who perished is still controversial and probably will never be known for certain. We had to take care of them. Research a process analysis for errors in causal analysis is however the magnitude and type of strategy is required. Again, groups began to form to do something about the pollution or to speak about what was happening to the city, and I think all of that great foment in civil society is what led to a reform in the political system in Mexico. Of course, both of those facts, and they probably were facts, that he announced, were things that the Mexican government didn’t want to hear. That took some doing because I couldn’t get through readily. The foreign media would always cover these things, and then report it, and then sometimes the Mexican media would be able to report on what the foreign media had presented. The Secret Service had great difficulty with the Mexican authorities maintaining any kind of crowd control around her. But early that morning, some lines were still open. We also have to remember that there was a major aftershock thirty six hours later, about 7 o’clock at night the next day. Q: Well, then, if Gavin would make these statements, like obviously there was a problem of corruption which led to deaths, could the media mention that? I remember doing up the format. It is the third largest country in Latin America and has one of the largest populations—more than 100 million—making it the home of more Spanish speakers than any other ...read more. That was my view. A lot of countries don’t plan for earthquakes. The control tower operation was down so the airport was closed. One is of two American Embassy officials who attempted to save lives of people caught in downed buildings. Mexico’s president, Miguel de la Madrid (1934-2012), was criticized for his government’s weak response to the disaster. At first, the president rejected offers of international aid and played down the damage caused by the quake. What the aftershock did was make many people really panic. Responses from the Mexican community and foreign governments came swiftly. First Lady Nancy Reagan toured Mexico City with U.S. Stanley Zuckerman was a Counselor for Public Affairs for Mexico City from 1978 to 1983; he was interviewed by Kennedy beginning July 2004. She is not going to be able to put back a building or dig out civilians or something like that. The airport runways were thought to be damaged on the first day. I liaised with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance[in USAID] and we got a check cut for a million dollars. Ambassador Gavin went to see Placido Domingo and his relatives for instance at a building that was destroyed so he could console surviving family members. The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake was an earthquake that happened in Mexico City on September 19, 1985. I went to the airport to meet the Chargé d’Affaires, Morris Busby, who was returning from Northern Mexico. Even my own sister and aged father in San Francisco weren’t sure of our condition for two days. What could possibly be achieved by the First Lady’s going to Mexico except inconveniencing the Mexicans at a time of national disorder and stress and grieving and all the rest of it and getting some photo-ops for Nancy Reagan? This is the address to send it to. Financially, we had already offered the Mexicans a variety of technical assistance from sniffer dogs to special jacks and engineering gear to try to rescue people from collapsed buildings. And even when Presidential orders were given, they were sometimes not followed, or could not be followed. I think I mentioned his mother’s family had settled in California before California became a state. The quake ruptured the San Andreas fault to the north and south of the city, for a total of 296 miles, and ...read more, On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 67 people and causing more than $5 billion in damages. As I noted above, the Navy Secretariat, which was in charge of disaster relief, was destroyed on the morning of the quake. It was 30 years ago today that at least 5,000 people — some estimates put the number at closer to 10,000, others at four times that — died in the powerful Mexico City earthquake of 1985. Most of them came in to the Embassy to work. They had left me in charge of the Mission but Washington didn’t know that. I really caught hell for that from the staff later because the Department neglected to tell anyone or inform our families. That continued for five years. What was especially needed was machinery to cut through the concrete reinforcing rods, oxygen, the sniffer dogs to search for survivors, tents, heavy machinery to move some of the rubble, lighting systems, and communications gear. Most of these people interacted with Mexican lower level government officials and with the Mexican population. Most of the items were legitimately needed, although during the first few days even the Mexicans didn’t really understand the extent of the damage and what was needed for relief. It turned out later that one of his close friends, Placido Domingo, lost some of his family in a collapse of a twenty-five story building. It did more damage to some of the Embassy’s residences, fortunately, not mine. During this second period of mine in Mexico, 1985-1986, Mexico City was still peaceful. Excélsior would probably have 30 stories on the front page. Despite the fact that the disaster was one of the most powerful and destructive quakes ever to hit a populated area of the United States, ...read more, The 1964 Alaska earthquake, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America, struck Alaska’s Prince William Sound, about 74 miles southeast of Anchorage. Making matters worse, on the evening of September 20, a magnitude 7.5 aftershock shook the region. Its economic boom, known as the Mexican Miracle, encouraged heavy migration, and few politicians were eager to stem the flow of incoming labour with strict building cod… The next day there were a number of lesser quakes, the strongest of which measured 7.8. Elliot Abrams went from the State Department, I went from the NSC, Jim Rosebush was then Nancy Reagan’s Chief of Staff and Elaine Crispin was the First Lady’s press secretary. In fact, some of the neighborhoods close to it were badly damaged. Some people found it a difficult place to live then, and in certain aspects —  traffic, noise, congestion, smog — it was. At that time, all the lines went dead. And that a lot of that probably had to do with corruption, that maybe it was paid for that there should be 50 bags of sand and cement or whatever it was, but 15 bags went in, because it was more expensive to build things to code. Mexico City earthquake of 1985. They also strengthened one corner of the building. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government or of ADST. We landed in Mexico and went through this program which involved going to Los Pinos, giving the check, having a little talk with de la Madrid, and going around touring a number of sites. There were American guests at this hotel and one of the officials actually pulled out bodies. It was my job. Officials say at … National Security Council’s Staff Director for Latin America from 1985 to 1986. The president was saying that they had lost 10,000 people, and Gavin made a public statement that there were 20,000 or more who had died. The effects of the quake were particularly devastating because of the type of ground upon which the city sits. The deaths were so numerous that they had to use the baseball stadium as an outdoor morgue. So I don’t know exactly, but we had 25,000 officially registered. I knew that many Embassy people took in Mexicans and donated things and sympathized. The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. There was also not much of a line between editorial opinion of the newspaper and the reporting on the news. Usually it was items that were needed, but sometimes Americans rush to clean out their basements and send whatever is available, and then they feel good and take a tax break. Of course, the U.S. television networks were telling the U.S. about the situation, and as usual it was vastly overblown, probably unnecessarily scaring Americans with friends or relatives in Mexico City. It had a magnitudeof 8.1, and the number of people killed added up to 10,000 deaths. A lot of people hadn’t panicked the first day; the aftershock though brought many to the edge of desperation. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake: an excerpt from “Shooter” ... They’d built a lot of the new buildings in Mexico City, with the elevator in the center of the building to form a steel core like the rods in reinforced concrete. I went onto the roof and I could see buildings collapsed within two or three blocks. They needed that much space to lay out the corpses. As an aftershock struck on September 20, the Mexican government then announced that it would be willing to accept help. Robert S. Pastorino describes the disaster and the embassy’s response to it. This was an administrative decision and Nancy Reagan was going to take a million dollar check to Los Pinos [the Presidential palace]. This is a city and urban area of 20 million people in the valley, of which seven or eight million people were directly affected by the loss of services; the loss of electricity, water, sewage facilities, all of which began to cause disease problems. They weren’t evidently hostile but something could have happened to her in such a large crowd. We had to give the Mayor of Mexico City a video presentation of how the implosions were done in the U.S. I think we actually got out in several places. It was appropriate to speak publicly about issues relating to our interests, but dangerous to tell Mexicans how to manage their own affairs, at least in public. Minister Counselor for Public Affairs in Mexico City from 1985 to 1989. In the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake, an early-alert earthquake warning system was established in Mexico City and other safety measures were enacted. More than 10,000 people died as a result of the quake, some 30,000 others were injured and an estimated 250,000 people were left homeless. One is that 20,000 people had died, because he counted the number of buildings times what he assumed was the occupancy of each building, and it was clear that most people in those buildings would not survive. The 8.1-magnitude quake struck Mexico City on Sept. 19, 1985, followed by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock one day later. The event was televised nationwide and in those parts of Mexico City which had electricity. The quake was centered off the Pacific coast of Michoacán, more than 200 miles west of Mexico City, the nation’s capital. AID sent many of them because it was in charge of our disaster relief at that time. There was a huge controversy. But the greatest credit goes to the thousands of Mexicans that dug those first few days, saving hundreds of people. Of a population of 18 million, an estimated 10,000 people were killed, and 50,000 were injured. It was something she very much wanted to do. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Interested in Recording Your Oral History, Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training. Connie Gavin set up a foundation, very quickly, within a month, and collected money to bring kids that were badly maimed for re-constructive surgery in Los Angeles. I didn’t notice any great panic and couldn’t see any damaged buildings on that block. In response, citizens organized their own rescue brigades. Posted in Mexico City as a Minister Counselor for Public Affairs from 1985 to 1989, Ambassador Sally Grooms Cowal gives insight into some controversies surrounding Ambassador Gavin during her interview with Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning August 2001. We all flew to Mexico in this nearly empty plane spending a lot of hours in the air. It was not totally closed. She was surrounded by this mob of people. I really got my appreciation for the damage at 11 o’clock that night. Tips to keep in mind for World Mental Health Day; Oct. 5, 2020. September 19, 2008 (The earthquake of 19-Sep-1985) One of the worst natural disasters in the Americas occurred 23 years ago today, when at 7:19 am local time an earthquake of magnitude 8.1 struck in the subduction zone off the west coast of Mexico. Quakes, most of them minor, and none as strong as the one in 1985, remained a constant feature of life in Mexico City. MEXICO CITY -- Many things changed after the devastating September 19, 1985 earthquake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale, struck Mexico City. We had to put thousands of telegrams in a huge sack and have them carried to Laredo to be sent out from there. Mexico City is on a plateau surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. I remember many stories about heroism during those next few days. Its epicenter was about 55 km (34 mi) south of the city of Puebla.The earthquake caused damage in the Mexican states of Puebla and Morelos and in the Greater Mexico City area, including the collapse of … So they wouldn’t just report the facts and then put their editorial opinion on the editorial page, saying he shouldn’t have spoken this way or he didn’t have the facts corrected, it would all be interwoven in the same story. T he earthquake that struck Mexico City on Tuesday hit on the same exact calendar date on which the capital was hit by a violent earthquake in 1985. The Embassy had ten or twelve other physical facilities around the city. Your browser (Internet Explorer 7 or lower) is out of date. But I was more at ease because Ambassador Gavin and Busby were both back. On the morning of September 19, 1985, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit the western states of Mexico and including Mexico City. It was the only time no one paid much attention to the American Ambassador. Many worked most of the first 72 hours straight, either in the Embassy or outside. 5,000–45,000 dead 30,000 injured The 1985 Mexico City Earthquakewas an earthquakethat happened in Mexico Cityon September 19, 1985. They had spent a lot of time together as children. PASTORINO: No official Americans and just a few American citizens. As you know, Mexico City airport is very close to the downtown, and thus very close to much of the damage. 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