At least 20 children have died as their school collapse in an earthquake in central Mexico that has killed more than 200 people.
Two adults were also killed when the primary school Colegio Enrique Rebsamen collapsed in Mexico City, said the country’s President Enrique Pena Nieto, who visited the scene.
Thirty of their classmates and eight adults are still missing in the rubble of the building.
The 7.1 magnitude quake hit central Mexico hours after preparation drills were held on the anniversary of a devastating 1985 earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people in Mexico City.
At least 248 people have been killed in Tuesday’s quake, including 117 in the capital, authorities confirmed.
Panicked workers fled from office buildings and clouds of dust rose up from the crumbling facades of damaged buildings after the quake struck.
There were reports of people trapped in collapsed buildings and TV footage showed rescuers frantically digging into rubble with pickaxes.
As many as 44 buildings collapsed in Mexico City, according to mayor Miguel Angel Mancera.
Speaking minutes after the earthquake struck, resident Georgina Sanchez sobbed: “I’m so worried. I can’t stop crying. It’s the same nightmare as in 1985.”
Gala Dluzhynska said she was taking a class with 11 other women on the second floor of a building in the fashionable Alvaro Obregon street area when window and ceiling panels fell as the building was torn apart.
She said she fell in the stairs and people began to walk over her, before someone finally pulled her up.
“There were no stairs anymore. There were rocks,” she said.
Mexico City International Airport suspended operations, while electricity and phone lines were down in parts of the capital.
“We got out really fast, leaving everything as it was and just left,” said Rosaura Suarez, as she stood with a crowd on the street.
Alfredo Aguilar, 43, said the quake was “really strong – buildings started to move”.
The earthquake came less than two weeks after an 8.1 magnitude tremor in southern Mexico killed at least 98 people.
