6.5 magnitude earthquake hits Mexico City and popular tourist destination Acapulco
A massive earthquake struck southern and central Mexico on Friday, resulting in the deaths of at least two people and injuring several others.
Officials said the earthquake caused no major damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5.
Its epicentre was near the city of San Marcos in the southern state of Guerrero, near the Pacific coastal resort city of Acapulco.
It occurred 2.5 miles north-northwest of Rancho Viejo, Guerrero, at a depth of 21.7 miles. The earthquake was felt in Mexico City, more than 250 miles away.
Residents and tourists in Mexico City and Acapulco ran into the streets as soon as the tremors began.
Karen Gomez, a 47-year-old office worker who lives on the 13th floor of an apartment building in Mexico City, told Agence France-Presse that a siren woke her up.
“I woke up in panic. My cellphone alert said it was a powerful earthquake,” she said.
The Civil Protection Agency reported various landslides around Acapulco and on other highways in the state.
A 60-year-old man in Mexico City died from injuries he suffered after falling while emptying his second-floor apartment in the capital, local authorities said, AFP reports.
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada confirmed the death in a statement on social media, and in a separate statement,
She said that at least 12 people were injured in the earthquake.
A second death was recorded nearby in Guerrero. Governor Evelyn Salgado told reporters that a 50-year-old woman died after her house collapsed.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, whose first press conference of the New Year was interrupted by the quake, said she spoke to Salgado, who initially told her no serious damage was reported.
José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, a doctor and human rights defender who lives on one of the peaks that surround Acapulco, said he heard a loud rumbling sound, and all the dogs in the neighbourhood started barking.
“At that very moment, a seismic alert went off on my cellphone,” he said, “and then the tremors started with a lot of noise.”
He said the tremors were mild compared to some previous earthquakes and he had prepared a bag of essentials so they would be ready to leave if the shaking continued.
He said he was unable to reach some friends living in Costa Chica, southeast of Acapulco, because communications were cut.
Mexico lies between five tectonic plates and is one of the most seismically active countries in the world.
In January 2025, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook an area in southwestern Mexico.
About five miles from Colcomán de Vazquez Pallares, a municipality of about 20,000 people, and about 372 miles west of Mexico City, the shock struck.
The earthquake occurred at a depth of 53 miles.
In 1985, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake on the Pacific coast devastated much of central and southern Mexico, killing thousands and causing severe damage to Mexico City.
On September 19, 2017, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake killed 369 people, most of them in the capital.
On the same date in 2022, just hours after millions of people participated in a mock earthquake safety drill, another earthquake struck central Mexico exactly five years later.
The 7.6 magnitude earthquake’s impact spread 1,500 miles north, causing four-foot-high waves to rise inside a Death Valley cave known as Devil’s Hole.
