An earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the Richter Scale, struck the southern Pacific Coast of Mexico on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said. The epicentre was 24.6 km underground near the town of Pinotepa de Don Luis in Oaxaca state.
Though there were no deaths directly linked to the earthquake, at least two people died when a helicopter with Mexico’s interior minister and the governor of Oaxaca crashed while it was trying to inspect the earthquake’s damage, Reuters reported. The senior officials survived.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that there was no tsunami threat, BBC reported.
However, houses were damaged in the town of Santa Maria Chimalapas and walls collapsed in Jamiltepec town, The New York Times quoted Oaxaca’s state director of civil protection, Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga as saying. Tremors were also felt in the capital Mexico City, where people are still reeling under the trauma of quakes that hit the region in 2017.
On September 19, 2017, a powerful earthquake hit central Mexico killing 217 people. Almost two weeks before that close to 100 people died after the most powerful earthquake in the country’s history struck the southeastern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas on September 8.
While the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake was between those of the two earthquakes of 2017, all three occurred in the subduction zone where the Cocos Plate is slowly sliding under the North American Plate.
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