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Videos emerge of shaking and destruction after 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits Mexico

The quake, which occurred on the same date as two other major Mexican earthquakes, set off a wave of tsunami alerts around the Pacific

Graig Graziosi
Monday 19 September 2022 21:25 BST
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7.5 magnitude earthquake hits Mexico’s pacific coast
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Tourists and locals captured video of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the central coast of Mexico, sharing scenes of rattling rooms and even teetering pickup trucks.

On Monday a 7.6 earthquake hit the central coast of Mexico just a half an hour after the nation concluded its annual earthquake drill. Major earthquakes that killed hundreds and thousands hit on the same date in 2017 and 1985, respectively.

On Twitter, a user going by the name Jon posted a video from a hotel room in Puerto Vallarta, about 400km north of the earthquake's epicentre.

The clip shows his room shaking and a fan swinging wildly from the ceiling.

"Earthquake hit off the coast of Mexico and our hotel room in Puerto Vallarta shook hard," he wrote in a Twitter post alongside the video.

The earthquake set off tsunami warnings around the Pacific. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre advised that tsunami waves had been observed and that waves of 1 to 3 meters above the tide level were likely to strike Mexico's Pacific coastline.

In a video shared by Diario de Morelos, a publication covering the region near the earthquake’s epicentre, a pair of trucks can be seen shaking violently as seismic activity rocks the region.

John-Carlos Estrada, a journalist at CBS Austin, shared several videos of the quake from people on the ground in Mexico. In one video street signs in Mexico City can seen swaying due to the earthquake. Mexico City is about 485km (302 miles) from the earthquake's epicentre.

In a separate video he shared, light fixtures swing and clang together in a Mexican office building. Its unclear where that video was recorded.

Another video showed the aftermath of the earthquake in Apatzingán, a city about 231km away from the epicentre. The video shows the interior of what appears to be an office building, with ceiling tiles scattered on the floor of a hallway after falling during the earthquake.

A video taken in Mexico City shows crowds of people standing outside on the streets as an earthquake warning blares just a half an hour after the nation's annual earthquake drill concluded. There was no visible shaking in that video.

In Manzanillo, just 130km south of the epicentre, video emerged of a building that had partially collapsed. The entire wall of a gym can be see collapsed and open to the sky, with locals walking among the rubble.

The extent of the damage, as well as any potential deaths or injuries, is still unknown.

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