6.5 magnitude earthquake rattles Mexico Metropolis and Acapulco, a preferred vacationer hotspot

A robust earthquake rattled southern and central Mexico on Friday, killing at the least two individuals and injuring a number of. Officers stated there didn’t look like main harm from the quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey stated the earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5. Its epicenter was close to the city of San Marcos within the southern state of Guerrero, close to the Pacific coastal resort city of Acapulco. 

It occurred at a depth of 21.7 miles, 2.5 miles north-northwest of Rancho Viejo, Guerrero. The quake was felt greater than 250 miles away in Mexico Metropolis.

Residents and vacationers in Mexico Metropolis and Acapulco rushed into the streets when the shaking started.

Karen Gomez, a 47-year-old workplace employee dwelling on the thirteenth flooring of an house constructing in Mexico Metropolis, informed Agence France-Presse {that a} siren woke her up.

“I awoke in terror. My cellphone alert stated it was a robust earthquake,” she stated.

The civil protection company reported varied landslides round Acapulco and on different highways within the state.

Native officers stated a 60-year-old man in Mexico Metropolis died of his accidents after falling whereas evacuating his second-floor house within the capital, AFP reported. Mexico Metropolis Mayor Clara Brugada confirmed the demise in a press release posted on social media. In a separate assertion on social media, she stated at the least 12 individuals had been injured within the quake.

The second demise was reported close by in Guerrero. Gov. Evelyn Salgado informed reporters a 50-year-old girl died after her residence collapsed.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, whose first press briefing of the brand new yr was interrupted by the quake, stated she spoke with Salgado, who initially informed her there was no critical harm reported.

José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, a health care provider and human rights defender who lives on one of many peaks ringing Acapulco, stated he heard a powerful rumbling noise and all of the neighborhood canine started barking.

“In that second the seismic alert went off on my cellphone,” he stated, “after which the shaking started to really feel robust with lots of noise.”

He stated the shaking was lighter than in some earlier quakes and he had ready a backpack of necessities to be prepared to go away because the aftershocks continued.

He stated he had been unable to succeed in some pals who dwell alongside the Costa Chica, southeast of Acapulco, as a result of communications had been reduce.

Mexico is located between 5 tectonic plates and is without doubt one of the world’s most seismically lively international locations.

In January 2025, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook a area of southwest Mexico. The tremor was about 5 miles from Coalcoman de Vazquez Pallares, a municipality of round 20,000 individuals, about 372 miles west of Mexico Metropolis. The quake struck at a depth of 53 miles.

In 1985, an 8.1 magnitude quake centered on the Pacific coast ravaged a lot of central and southern Mexico, killing hundreds and inflicting extreme harm in Mexico Metropolis.

A 7.1-magnitude quake on Sept. 19, 2017, killed 369 individuals, most of them within the capital.

Precisely 5 years later, on the identical date in 2022, central Mexico was hit by one other quake, simply hours after thousands and thousands of individuals had taken half in a mock earthquake security train. The repercussions of the 7.6 magnitude quake prolonged so far as 1,500 miles north, the place four-foot-tall waves started churning inside a Loss of life Valley cave known as Devils Gap.