you mentioned south of mexico city in an area that is built on a lake bed. here s the real tragedy that we know so far. the town was actually practicing drills because of that 1985 quake. it s the anniversary of the 85 quake. that was an 8.0 magnitude that basically destroyed much of mexico city, led to thousands of deaths, led to billions of dollars in damages. led to, you know, massive amounts of loss of life in that area. so they were actually practicing drills because of that earthquake, that anniversary. and then to have this about 40 minutes ago, this 7.1 magnitude. aftershokts shocks haven t been felt ed yet. watching videos we have gotten in on social media, from our affiliate in telemundo, devastation. during the quake, things falling down, people trying to take cover. outside you are looking at
jones center for science and society. lucy, what do you make on the information you have got on this quake so far? what we are seeing is an earthquake within the slab below mexico. so it s relatively close to mexico city. as your previous reporter was saying, mexico city s soils amplify shaking and make every earthquake quite a bit worse. it is a not very far away. it s only about 80 miles from the center of mexico city. it s deep. so it s about 30 miles below the surface of the earth. but it a pretty large earthquake. it s actually similar in tectonic sense to the 8.0 that happened a couple of week ago. i think it s far enough away that it s not a direct aftershock but might be related. what do people who don t experience earthquakes have to know about a 7.1? what does that mean?
steve patterson is following from los angeles where we are getting video in and reports. what have we got steve. the epicenter is reported to be in a town called roboso, a few miles outside of mexico city. look at the aftermath will in mexico city. this is a 7.1 quake. it comes on the anniversary of an 8.0 quake back in 1985. that quake devastated mexico city. thousands of people dead. billions of dollars in damage. look at the images that are now coming in on this quake. it is not a good sign when you see parts of a major city a major metropolitan city like mexico city reduced to rubble right after the quake. that s the images coming in. we have got video of you saw the newsroom shot of offices shake, items falling off, people trying to run and scramble to get underneath desks and to protect themselves in any way they could. outside we are starting to see
localized tsunamis along the coast. they said it could be as far away a 700 miles, is that typical for an 8.0 earthquake? i think so. you do get a lot of reports coming in from mexico city. mexico city sits in a basal area, so anything that occurs on the coast of the central america region tends to get amplified and they get built in the mexico city area. we re looking at some video here, i believe it s of the are area. that s about 700 miles away from where it happened. when an earthquake like this hits, what should you do? you need to be aware of the
that s what you are seeing right now. there have been five aftershocks, four of those have been 5-plus magnitude intensity. unnerving to feel something like that. the depth is 35 kilometers or just about 21, 22 miles deep. wouldn t say it s shallow or deep. it s something in between. globally how many 8.0 magnitude earthquakes do we see in a year? one. and this one occurred about 150 kilometers off the coast just to the outside of the or just to the west of chiapa state. and hurricane irma has now plowed through the turks and caicos and continues so and in the region where you would expect some of the heaviest w d winds, potential for tornados and heavy downpours. but this is a very cocentric