Mexico earthquake kills at least 90

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Updated at 1: 23 p.m. BJT

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Mexico on Thursday has risen to at least 90 after emergency services in the southern state of Oaxaca said there had been 71 confirmed fatalities in the state alone late on Saturday.

View of damages after the 8.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Mexico's Pacific coast, in Ixtaltepec, the state of Oaxaca on September 9, 2017. /AFP Photo

"It's 71 (dead). Just for Oaxaca," said Jesus Gonzalez, a
spokesman for the state civil protection authority.

Relief efforts in the south continued through Saturday, with many of the people worst affected still wary of returning indoors fearing they could be brought down by ongoing aftershocks.

Updated at 7:10 a.m. BJT

Mexico’s 8.2-magnitude earthquake, the biggest one that hit the country in a century killed 65 people and 721 aftershocks were reported by the Mexican Seismological Service, according to AFP.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto described the quake as "the largest registered in our country in at least the past 100 years", stronger even than a devastating 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City.

View of the stockpile center of food aid for the inhabitants of Oaxaca and Chiapas states affected by an 8.2-magnitude earthquake on September 9, 2017, in Mexico City. /AFP Photo‍

Pena Nieto said local authorities were working to “restore water and food supplies and provide medical attention to those affected.”

Mexico's seismology service measured Thursday's quake at magnitude 8.2. The US Geological Survey measured it at 8.1, the same magnitude as the 1985 disaster.

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