Quake rocks Mexican coast, no damage reported

The quake smashed panes of glass and caused light structural damage to a hospital in the town of Coahuayutla, 300 km southwest of Mexico city, close to the quake epicentre, and one person was injured by a falling tile, according to civil protection in Guerrero state.

“At the moment there are no other reports of damage,” a spokesman said early on Tuesday.

The quake was felt for about a minute in Mexico city, about 240 km away and home to nine million people. “In the city, according to the reports we have, nothing has happened that we would expect to cause any problem,” Luis Wintergerst, Director General of Civil Protection in Mexico City, told Mexico’s TV AztecaA. “The city is calm and we know that it can withstand quakes up to 6.5 on the Richter Scale,” he added.

A civil protection department spokesman said some high tension cables had fallen in the centre of the capital but no other damage had so far been identified.

Mexican authorities put the magnitude of the quake at 5.9 while the USGS said its preliminary figure was 5.8. The USGS spokesman gave the location as latitude 18.3 degrees north and longitude 101.3 degrees west. “At this time we have no report of damage,” a spokesman for the civil protection department of Guerrero said. TV Azteca added: “There is no emergency situation.”

Three months ago a quake measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale rocked nine Mexican states and killed 33 people.