MEXICO CITY (Dispatches) -- At least 226 people were killed as a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked central Mexico Tuesday, the nation's civil protection agency told Reuters.
The death toll in Mexico City surged to 117 people, Luis Felipe Puente, the head of the agency, wrote in a post on Twitter. The earthquake struck on the 32nd anniversary of a temblor that killed thousands in the capital.
The state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, was also hard hit with 55 killed, Puente said. At least 12 people were killed in the neighboring state of Mexico, and three deaths were reported in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast.
"We ran outside thinking all was going to collapse around us,” said Lazaro Frutis, a 45-year-old who escaped an office building before it crumpled to the ground. "The worst thing is, we don’t know about our families or anything.”
The quake caused most of its damage in the center and south of the sprawling city.
Several buildings were reduced to debris and cars were flattened by falling stonework.
Scenes of chaos permeated the city, with traffic jammed to a standstill and anxious people running between the vehicles as ambulances tried to make headway, sirens squealing.
Emergency officials warned people in the streets to avoid smoking because of the risk of igniting gas leaking from ruptured pipes. In several locations, people were seen clambering on buildings that were now piles of stone and tangled metal to seek survivors and bodies.
Witnesses said a school was smashed to rubble in Cuernavaca city, just south of the capital. The fate of the pupils and teachers was unknown.
The quake hit only hours after many people participated in earthquake drills around the nation on the anniversary of a devastating quake that killed thousands in Mexico City in 1985. Many were also still shaken from a quake on Sept. 7 in southern Mexico that killed at least 98 people.