A massive earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mexico late Thursday and was felt as far away as Mexico City, where residents fled violently swaying buildings and electrical transformers exploded.
The Mexican Seismological Institute said the earthquake measured 8.4 in magnitude, making it the most powerful to strike Mexico since the disastrous earthquake of 1985, which caused extensive damage in Mexico City and left at least 5,000 people dead.
The epicenter of Thursday’s earthquake was about 60 miles off the coast of Chiapas state, near the border with Guatemala, according to the United States Geological Survey, which measured the quake’s magnitude at 8.1.
The National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned that tsunami waves as high as 9 feet might hit along Mexico’s Pacific coast.
Tsunami waves of 2.3 feet were observed in Huatulco, a resort city in Mexico’s Oaxaca state, and 3.3 feet at Salina Cruz, according to the center.
The earthquake struck at 9:49 p.m. Pacific time Thursday. The shaking toppled houses in Chiapas state, and was felt in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, where President Jimmy Morales said in a televised address that there had been some damage and possibly one death.
Two deaths have been reported in Chiapas, the state's governor, Manuel Velasco Coello, told local journalists.
The dead are two women in the city of San Cristóbal de las Chiapas, Velasco said in an interview with Televisa. He said there was extensive damage across the state, including to some hospitals that had lost power.
Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong said school would be canceled Friday in Chiapas and in Mexico City.