Twenty minutes to grab belongings, then Mexico earthquake homeless gather in tent village

People rest at a shelter after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 21, 2017. (Source: REUTERS)

A tent village sprouted next to a severely damaged apartment complex in southern Mexico City on Friday, a new home for residents left homeless by Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in a generation. They were given a series of 20-minute windows by authorities in which to go to their original homes to gather belongings.

Two of the roughly 30 apartment buildings that make up the Girasoles complex collapsed after Tuesday’s 7.1 magnitude quake. A handwritten sign across the street listed 14 people said to have died there.

The tremor killed at least 286 people and leveled some 52 buildings in the capital, sparking a desperate hunt for survivors and prompting political parties to outdo each other with gestures of generosity ahead of next year’s election.

Across the sprawling Mexican capital, the extent of the quake’s damage was becoming apparent, with many whose dwellings had become uninhabitable seeking somewhere to call home, raising the risk of a housing shortage in coming weeks.

Officials cordoned off various blocks still standing at the Girasoles complex, and inspections were underway to ascertain which buildings could be saved, and which would be demolished. Anguished residents feared most would soon be rubble.

Several removal vans were laden with mattresses and furniture as those who could packed up and left the complex.

But with few places to go and concern for their largely uninsured properties, many chose to camp out, making the most of short allotted windows to enter their scarred homes and remove their possessions. Others slept in their cars.

Vladimir Estrada, a 39-year-old musical radio programmer, was just back from a quick raid of his fifth floor apartment, returning with plastic bags stuffed with his belongings.

“The building is very, very damaged. It moves. Everything moves. You can see it, and no, it’s not my nerves,” he said. “Nobody here has insurance. Some have family members who can help them but others don’t. Everything is in doubt.”

Emergency services worker Ana Karen Almanza was helping coordinate the arrival of donated supplies in the park, where about a dozen tarp awnings had been erected. She said there was no official involvement in the tent village emerging around her.

“It’s the residents, the neighbors,” she said. “Lots of them don’t have anywhere to live.”

RUMBLES OF DISCONTENT

Nearly three days after the quake, rescue workers across the capital continued to sift through debris. As the shock began to subside, signs of exhaustion crept in, with growing discontent and rumors swirling online.

Late on Thursday, Mexico’s Navy apologized for communicating incorrect information in the story a fictitious schoolgirl, supposedly trapped under a collapsed school in Mexico City.

The tale of the girl, dubbed Frida Sofia by local media, had captivated a devastated nation, and the high-profile televised blunder led to anger.

Officials also sought to quash rumors that the military would be bulldozing razed buildings deemed unlikely to harbor survivors.

With signs of tensions bubbling under the surface, the country’s deeply unpopular political class strove to shine.

Disaster relief is sensitive for politicians in Mexico after the government’s widely panned response to the 1985 quake caused upheaval, which some credited with weakening the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

In a statement, the PRI said it would be donating 258 million pesos ($14.42 million), or 25 percent of its annual federal funding, to help those afflicted.

Meanwhile, the national human rights commission proposed changing the Mexican constitution to divert about 30 percent of political parties’ funding to a federal disaster fund.

Calls for political penny-pinching gained momentum on social media following a powerful quake two weeks ago that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country.

After that tremor, current leftist presidential frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador suggested donating 20 percent of his party’s federal campaign funds for victims.

On Thursday, though, after news of the PRI plans broke, Lopez Obrador upped the ante, proposing donating 50 percent of his National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party’s 2018 federal funding to support victims.

Lorenzo Cordova, the head of the national electoral institute, said in a video posted to Twitter the body had no problem with parties choosing to divert funds to the needy.

The full scale of damage has not been officially calculated.

Citigroup’s Mexican unit Citibanamex told clients it was lowering its 2017 economic growth forecast to 1.9 percent from 2.0 percent due to the earthquake.