Scared families south of the Mexico-California border slept outside for a second night on Monday after a big earthquake tore cracks in roads and houses and dozens of aftershocks rattled the area.
Two people died and more than 200 were injured on Sunday when a magnitude 7.2 quake rocked the area around the border city of Mexicali. Baja California Governor Jose Osuna said the victims were crushed by a collapsed house and a falling wall.
The tremor, felt as far north as Los Angeles, cracked main roads, toppled electricity posts and knocked down an empty multistory parking lot under construction in Mexicali, a prosperous industrial city and busy border crossing.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Dozens of smaller tremors continued to shake buildings in Mexicali, adding to fears of another big quake. On top of those opting to sleep outdoors, Osuna said 3,500 people with badly damaged homes would be moved to shelters.
In the nearby town of Guadalupe Victoria, near the quake’s epicenter, officials passed out water, blankets and food to scores of people camping in tents or cars, too afraid to return home. One person dragged a mattress outside to sleep on.
“We’re panicking over the aftershocks,” said Juana Cabrera, who spent Sunday night on the street with 20 family members including a three-month-old baby and a 68-year-old grandmother after a wall in her house fell down.
Broken gas pipes sparked fires on Sunday — burning down a department store in the border town of San Luis Rio Colorado — and briefly darkened streets in Mexicali causing car accidents, but no major buildings collapsed.
Power was mostly re-established in Mexicali on Monday, but some hospitals lay patients out on beds in parking lots due to worries over cracked walls. Many stores, banks and restaurants stayed shut, with employees frightened to return to work.
“With the number of aftershocks we’ve had, the likelihood of another 6 or 7 magnitude earthquake is very real,” Erik Pounders, a geologist at the US Geological Survey, said. “There might be a few structures that just barely made it through and the second one could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
A highway connecting Mexicali with the nearby border city of Tijuana on the Pacific coast was ruptured by a crevice at least a meter deep, according to one witness.
A liquefied natural gas import terminal south of Tijuana was not damaged however, operator Sempra Energy said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS