MEXICO CITY: Mexico will search another three days beneath the rubble for possible survivors of the September 19 earthquake even though it is unlikely rescuers will find anyone alive, the country’s chief of emergency services said on Monday.
Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection department, also told Reuters that the government has instructed prosecutors to investigate newly constructed buildings that collapsed in the quake for code violations, including a school where 19 children and seven adults died.
“I can say that at this time it would be unlikely to find someone alive,” Puente said in an interview, referring to 43 missing people being sought at four disaster sites in Mexico City.
The 7.1 magnitude quake struck one week ago, killing 326 people including 187 people in Mexico City, damaging 11,000 homes, of which about 1,500 will need to be demolished, Puente said.
About 10 percent of damaged buildings were constructed after strict building codes were enacted in the wake of the devastating 1985 earthquake that killed an estimated 10,000 people, Puente said, leading officials on Monday to instruct prosecutors to open investigations.
“The Mexico City mayor and the national government have already ordered judicial investigations to determine who was responsible for new construction that did not meet the requirements,” Puente said from Civil Protection headquarters, where a roomful of technicians monitored seismic activity and tropical storms on an array of screens.
A school that collapsed in southern Mexico City, killing 19 children and seven adults, will be among the subjects of the investigations, Puente said.
Officials who approved the school building, the construction company and the owner of the property all could be held accountable if any violations are discovered, Puente said.
The largest search and rescue effort was under way at an office building in the Roma section of Mexico City where 40 people may be buried, based on families who have reported their relatives missing, Puente said.
A person was believed missing at each of three other buildings in the capital where search operations are in progress, Puente said.
Dogs trained to pick up the scent of survivors have yet to find any signs of life at the search sites, he said.
Asked how mucher longer search and rescue operations would continue, Punete said, “As of today, we have agreed to another 72 hours.”
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Mexico unlikely to find more quake survivors, emergency chief says
Mexico unlikely to find more quake survivors, emergency chief says
Zimbabwe opposition says constitutional ‘coup’ under way
- The accusations came after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office
HARARE: Leading Zimbabwe opposition figures accused the government Wednesday of a constitutional “coup” after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
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