Rescuers dig through wrecked buildings

COLIMA, Mexico -- Emergency crews dug into piles of collapsed cement and brick Wednesday to reach victims trapped by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 25 people, crumpling walls like paper, turning brick into powder and leaving steel reinforcement bars scattered like straws.

At least 300 people were injured in the 7.8 magnitude quake that hit western Mexico, civil defense officials said. Among the dead were a 90-year-old man crushed by a falling lamppost in the Colima state town of Tecoman and a 1-year-old girl killed by a collapsing brick ceiling in neighboring Jalisco state.

"All of a sudden the house came crashing down, and I was buried under a wall," recounted Colima resident Doris Janet Robles, 17, who was at a prayer meeting at a relative's house when the quake hit Tuesday night.

"I was suffocating, until my brother was able to get me out," said Robles, who was hospitalized for a broken pelvis.

President Vicente Fox flew to Colima on Wednesday, where he spoke with state officials and toured the disaster area. "Let everyone in Colima know that we are with them," he said upon arrival.

In the city of Guadalajara -- Mexico's second-largest, more than 100 miles from the epicenter -- bells from one of colonial city's dozens of ancient churches fell from the tower and dozens of homes partially collapsed.

The quake also rocked Mexico City, 300 miles east of the epicenter, sending terrified residents fleeing into the streets, although the Mexican capital suffered little damage.

At least 10 quakes ranging in magnitude from 3.9 to 4.5 shook the coastal area following Tuesday's quake.

The aftershocks did little additional damage, but one 5.8-magnitude temblor sent residents of Colima scurrying out of their damaged homes Wednesday afternoon.

On a corner of one of the worst-hit streets, relatives gathered on the street to hold a wake for Maria Rodriguez Macia, 83, crushed to death Tuesday in her nearby home.

Her 53-year-old son, Vicente Rodriguez, and other relatives stood by the wooden coffin, surrounded by candles and a portrait of the Virgin of Guadeloupe.

"We're too afraid to have it inside. You felt how the ground moved just now," Vicente Rodriguez said.

In Colima state's capital, parts of downtown lay in ruins Wednesday, with collapsed adobe houses and cars crushed under piles of bricks. In all, 166 homes were destroyed in the capital, also called Colima, home to 230,000 people. Fox's government called a state of emergency throughout the state.

Rescue workers in yellow suits dug through wrecked buildings, using pneumatic drills and their bare hands to pull away concrete slabs in search of survivors, and passers-by, relatives and neighbors joined the battle to save those trapped.

Maria Elena Ramirez, 47, was pulled from a pile of rubble that once was her home, along with her 7-year-old son Jesus Martin, both buried when a wall crashed down on them.

"We were trapped, we were screaming for help, but no one could get us out until some people in a passing car stopped and pulled the rubble off us," recounted Ramirez, who was treated for multiple injuries.

The scenes in the streets of this charming, colonial-era city about 25 miles from the epicenter were of desolation. Along some streets, people gingerly entered damaged buildings to recover personal documents.

"The destruction is like a war zone, with fallen walls and streets blocked by rubble," Red Cross official Enrique de Jesus Rivera said.

"We have had over a 100 people brought in for treatment, some with fractures and a few with very serious injuries," said Tomas Castillo, a Red Cross commander in Colima.

The Mexican army set up six shelters and sent dozens of medics, communications technicians and engineers to the area.

The earthquake was centered southeast of the port and tourist center of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast in Colima state. Power was knocked out in Manzanillo but damage was reported to be light.

Mexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6, but the U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.

Some earthquakes of magnitude 7 have caused massive damage, but the effect of a quake can be affected by many factors, including its depth and the sort of earth through which it passes as it moves away from the epicenter.

Tuesday's quake had a depth of 20.5 miles -- considered shallow, and hence very dangerous. But the epicenter was not under an inhabited area.

"We're fortunate in the sense it wasn't near a large urban center. If that were the case, you might expect a lot more destruction," said Harley Benz, scientist in charge of the USGS's national earthquake information center in Golden, Col.

The area of the epicenter comes at the junction of three tectonic plates, and is very active both seismically and volcanically.

The last substantial earthquake in the Colima area was in 1995. It registered a magnitude of 8.0 and killed 49 people. At least 100 people were injured in that quake, which was a little northwest of Tuesday's earthquake.