Earthquake Update: "Ométepec's Longest Night"

Introduction: A news team from Mexico's MILENIO Televisión spent the first night of the March 20, 2012, earthquake at its epicenter in Ométepec. The following first-person reporter's account relates a night lived with fear. 

We have published several posts about the impact of natural events on the people of Mexico:

- Geography: Ground of Mexico's Culture and History  

- Mexico's Volcanoes and Mesoamerican Mythology 

- Cuicuilco, Volcanoes and the Fragility of Life in Mesoamerica 

Up to now, our focus has been on volcanoes, not on earthquakes. Yet according to Mexico's National Seismological Service (SSN): 

- 59% of Mexico's population inhabits land subject to earthquakes; 

- Today (Monday, March 26) at 4:46 AM an aftershock of 4.7 Richter occurred in Oaxaca state, 79 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Pinotepa Nacional Park; 

- Up to March 25th at 9:15 AM, 184 aftershocks greater than 3.5 Richter have been recorded in Mexico City and the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca; 30 aftershocks have measured greater than 4.0 Richter. 

The account related here thus has deep roots reaching down into Mexico's geography and history that span across more than three thousand years.

Improvised shelter in Ométepec, Guerrero. Photo: Jorge Carballo

Milenio: Epétepec, Guerrero • This fear is not only felt: it is heard. It is as if something gigantic would approach and scare us by its sheer weight. Like a giant. The aftershocks felt about every half hour are  heard first as a murmur in the distance, way back in the underbrush at the top of the mountain.

A moment only for the murmur to spread before its thunder voice fills all the streets and corners of Ométepec.

The eyes open from more than fright, the hair on our arms stands on end, the heart pounds at full gallop, the sweat, the breath. The shock.

The sweet voice of a woman answers the question that we fail to ask:

- Yes, it was an aftershock. One of the mildest. 

It is 11:00 PM here in Ométepec, the epicenter of the 7.4 Richter earthquake that hit [Mexico's Guerrero state] here today at 12:03 PM, March 20, 2012. It will be a long night.

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If one day you become educated, return with all homing instinct to your people... the homeland has the flavor of fruits ... all the stars fall on your chest... pave your roads with open affection... the fragrance of almonds runs through the streets, and even in the silence, filled with fireflies, all the woes have their guitars....

Thus the poet Juan García Jiménez spoke of his homeland, this town between two hills, Ométepec.

This municipality of the Costa Chica (Pacific coast) of Guerrero is famous as the birthplace of poets who carried the name of the people to the national level and even more, to the jealous world of letters.

Along with Garcia, Francisco Reguera and Rodrigo Torres Hernandez excelled in the field of Mexican poetry, but the latter also became a revolutionary.  These passionate rebels were not strangers to this place. The Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary is where Jose María Morelos y Pavón chose to proclaim The Sentiments of the Nation—now it is the name of Ométepec's main street. 

Hours after the earthquake, federal and state officials, arriving in their late-model vehicles, moved along Ométepec's main street to help those affected.

This was no small matter. The governor of Guerrero, Angel Aguirre, was born in the municipality located on the road to the mountains, on the road to Azoyu.

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It is ten o'clock at night. The road leading to Ométepec is surrounded by about eight villages where  inhabitants took chairs and tables to eat outdoors. They do not want to be inside their adobe houses with laminated or tile roofs. The creaking of the earth jangles our nerves.

- We shake for the earthquake, they say—chatting with reporters who arrive at the epicenter—and they caution us, Go with care.

The Marquelia-National Pinotepa road meanders through darkness that obscures the murmur of mosquitoes. Only the glow of fires on both sides of the road are visible.

Suddenly we drive into fog. Then we come upon piles of rock and earth on the road, a sign of landslides that occurred this evening.

The mountain is showing its wounds. Fifteen miles up, driving towards Azoyu, the welcome sign at the head of Costa Chica, with its more than 40,000 inhabitants, reads "Ométepec."

*******

- Bring the gauze, there's none here!

So you listen to the voice of a nurse, which is the first sign of the earthquake. A makeshift hospital has been set up in the parking lot of the Ometepec Regional Hospital. Seventeen patients were evacuated from the hospital when the quake damaged the hospital building. They are now resting in two tents made of tubes and covered with yellow tarps.

In the afternoon, the team of 200 nurses, doctors and assistants felt pounding on the roof of the two-story hospital that had been remodeled only a year ago. Next, on the second floor, the glass door leading to the administrative offices burst, seven lamps fell from the ceilings in the bathrooms, and walls broke. There was shouting, nurses running, patients frightened. We had to leave. 

- There was no fear. Our priority was to evacuate patients as a precaution, even though we saw that the damage was minimal, said Manuel Campos, director of the hospital.

At least there were sighs of relief: two babies born before noon were already at home, away from the new makeshift hospital, the size of two bedrooms.

On stretchers, installed a mere 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) apart, the seventeen patients are being treated for broken bones, stomach infections, sprains. Nothing serious. Only a six-month-old with a lung infection requires special care. He is in a lot of pain, so he cries all the time.

Those needing more attention—like Sr. Eustace, aged 70+ years, who needs to be fed through tubes—are in another, smaller tent. Over the next few hours, ten patients will be transferred to hospitals in San Luis Zacatlán, Xochistlahuaca Copala, Chilpancingo and Taxco. 

Our cameraman, Vicente Gonzalez,  video-recorded the set-up—the faces, serum containers, nurses checking charts, the catheters. Then once again, the underground thud. Water in the bottles moves like a small sea. Patients are no longer are frightened: they only wait to see what happens. 

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- The earthquakes have not stopped coming. We were very scared to stay because of the cracks in our house.

Alcantara Cleopas speaks from a corner of the camp where eight families are assembled in the patio of a communal dwelling [Note: Poor families live in a single room, sharing kitchen and bathroom].  Twenty-five people, including seven children, are now on mattresses under sheets and blankets converted into a new collective bedroom. They put up a tarp for protection from the wind, although they know that their fear comes from below the ground.

- Right now we want the little ones to rest their legs and get some sleep. Clearly we are not going to sleep: we are here keeping watch if the earthquake comes, added Cleopas.

The youngest child is just a year and a half. Cleopas's mother-in-law, Matilde, was rocking him in her arms when the earthquake struck, leaving a trail of broken glass, broken dishes, and cracked walls. Matilda fainted, says Cleopas.

- You have to realize that the houses shook instantly. I had never felt an earthquake like this one. From what I remember, the one in 1995 was strong [8.0 Richter, epicenter in Jalisco and Colima states (Pacific Coast)], and the one in 1985 [8.1 Richter, epicenter in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Michoacán] was even stronger, but neither were like this one, of this magnitude. 

His neighbor, Leyda Martinez, also set up a camp in the garden of her house. Her outdoor 'bedroom' is complete with the bases of the beds, five chairs and a small table for the TV.

- You cannot sleep here because of the loud rumbles. It is something I have never felt in my life," says the teacher.

- I fear that an even stronger aftershock may come. They are constant. Yes, we await the next one and we are anxious. Another even stronger may come, so we're all together. 

One detail: in both houses, wax figures of San Nicolas, the patron of the town, and the Virgin of Guadalupe, with their candles, remained intact with no damage, no crashes. 

- We can only pray and ask God that the other does not come so hard, concludes Leyda.

Vincent continues to record videos. Photographer Jorge Carballo takes some snapshots.  Suddenly, the blow that feels like the tread of a giant. Again, the shock. 

- Leyda smiles: That's nothing. We have felt worse. 

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It is early morning here in Ométepec. We have felt at least forty aftershocks. Nobody walks in the streets. Patrolling the town are two State Police cars and more than a dozen white vans marked with the slogan 'Guerrero nos Une' (Guerrero brings us together) painted on their doors.

Ométepec is silent. Quiet but waiting.

Every half hour, the footsteps feel closer...murmurs that something stronger is coming...that something lurks. And at 5:03 AM, the aftershock of 5.0 Richter scale assaults us.

- What's going on, what's happening? we ask each other upon jumping up from the chair, from the seat of the car, or from anywhere else. The aftershock rocked the walls, windows, doors, stairs. Everything moved. Everything.

Once again the eyes open from more than fright, the hair on our arms stands on end, the heart pounds at full gallop, the sweat, the breath. The shock. 

Ométepec did not sleep the night of March 20.  Spanish original

Still Curious?

Here's my own account of last Tuesday's (March 20, 2012) Earthquake 2012: Mexico's Vulnerability to the Forces of Nature.

Here's another first-person account of the March 20, 2012, earthquake, translated from the Mexican press and titled, Earthquake Update: "Ruins, fear, strong aftershocks...but no help arrives".

Here's a description of Mexico's Geography: Ground of Mexico's Culture and History.