What happened in the Mexico City earthquake of 1985?
The Mexico City earthquake of 1985
El terremoto del 19 de septiembre de 1985
19 September 1985. At 7:19 in the morning of 19 September 1985 an earthquake of magnitude 8.1, with its centre off the Pacific coast of Michoacán, shook Mexico City for about…
Draft: not yet checked against its sources.
Where: Mexico, Mexico City
What happened
At 7:19 in the morning of 19 September 1985 an earthquake of magnitude 8.1, with its centre off the Pacific coast of Michoacán, shook Mexico City for about ninety seconds. The soft bed of the old lake under the centre amplified the waves, and hundreds of buildings fell: the Hotel Regis, the Juárez hospital, the Nuevo León block in Tlatelolco, schools and homes. Counts of the dead ranged from a few thousand to 35,000, and the true figure is unknown. What people remember is the response: ordinary citizens dug through rubble with their hands, organised food and shelter and, as the writer Carlos Monsiváis put it, filled the gaps left by the government. The volunteer rescue brigades, the Topos, were born then. Building codes were rewritten and a civil protection system created.
Say it
El 19 de septiembre de 1985 un terremoto destruyó muchos edificios de la Ciudad de México.
On 19 September 1985 an earthquake destroyed many buildings in Mexico City.
Why it matters
1985 is remembered in Mexico as the day civil society discovered itself and the one-party state lost its aura, a shift that fed the democratic opening of the following decades. 19 September is now a national drill day.
Read about it
Connected
- Tlatelolco, 2 October 1968 (2 October 1968)
- Tlatelolco, 2 October 1968 (2 October 1968)
- Argentina's December 2001 (19 December 2001–6 January 2002)
Sources
- #AGNRecuerda el sismo de 1985, vía La Jornada — Archivo General de la Nación (gob.mx)