Published May 05, 2011
| EFE
Mexico City – A magnitude-5.5 earthquake rocked southern Mexico on Thursday, just minutes after the seismic alert system in Mexico City was activated, but no injuries or damage have been reported, the National Seismology Service said.
The temblor occurred at 8:24 a.m., the service said, adding that the epicenter was located at a depth of 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) and some 55 kilometers (34 miles) west of Ometepec, a town on the Costa Chica of the southern state of Guerrero.
"The constant seismic alert (system) we have went off and, fortunately, after the first inspection we gave the city ... we found that there have not been any incidents as of now," Federal District Emergency Management Secretary Elias Miguel Moreno Brizuela said.
Five helicopters were used to conduct the initial inspection in Mexico City and no damage was spotted, Moreno Brizuela told Televisa.
Mexico, one of the countries with the highest levels of seismic activity in the world, sits on the North American tectonic plate and is surrounded by three other plates in the Pacific: the Rivera microplate, at the mouth of the Gulf of California; the Pacific plate; and the Cocos plate.
That last tectonic plate stretches from Colima state south and has the potential to cause the most damage since it affects Mexico City, which has a population of more than 20 million and was constructed over what was once Lake Texcoco.
The magnitude-8.1 earthquake that hit Mexico City on Sept. 19, 1985, was the most destructive to ever hit Mexico, killing some 10,000 people, injuring more than 40,000 others and leaving 80,000 people homeless.
The most recent powerful quake to hit Mexico was a magnitude-7.6 temblor that rocked Colima on Jan. 21, 2003.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/05/strong-earthquake-rocks-southern-mexico/#ixzz1LfwqJvtM
