Feet of Clay in Mexico

When we arrived with our six children to study Spanish in Mexico in January 1985 we knew nothing about the tectonic plate under the Pacific Ocean that was grinding against the one on which we intended to set up home. Moving at the speed at which a fingernail grows, the Cocos Plate, named after the protruding island, had long engaged the less dense North American Plate, subducting beneath it and lifting it to form the plateau in the middle of Mexico on whose southern slopes we had rented a house. We were interested in the nearby, snow-capped peak of the volcano, Popocatepetl, from which smoke would billow from time to time, but had no idea it represented a fracture in the earth’s crust caused by that lifting.

We had driven through Mexico City, which is cradled in a depression surrounded by mountains, unaware that it was built on the clay bed of a lake that had formed years ago when part of the plateau had subsided and river drainage had been blocked by volcanic effusions. Rain filled the depression with clay. Islands formed. Aztecs built on them: then the Spanish. The population grew. Land was reclaimed. The city swelled to overflow the depression. The wet clay that bore the burden waited resentfully.

When we arrived nature seemed at peace, even if the republic was in chaos. Bougainvillea decked our old town, Cuernavaca, seventy-five kilometres south of Mexico City, and there was a timelessness about the central square with its cathedral, coffee in the cloisters, mariachi bands, and tacos whose spice could burn the skin of your face if you dribbled.

It was not as if nature gave no warnings of her struggles. Over forty earthquakes greater than 7.0 on the Richter scale had been recorded in the earlier years of the century as the two plates contended. Ominously, these reports had been confined to more distal regions of their conflict. None had been reported under the ocean opposite Mexico City, which meant that tension was steadily mounting.

At 7.17 a.m. on September 19, 1985, the tension was released with the force of 1500 atomic bombs as the plates shifted near the mouth of the Rio Balsas, some 400 kilometres from Mexico City. Measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale, the earthquake’s effect was felt as far away as Houston in the USA. Travelling at four kilometres a second, its shock waves reached Mexico City within two minutes, where it brought down some 3000 buildings, and killed between 10,000 and 30,000 people, according to government or unofficial accounting. Nature was at least merciful in her timing: most children were still having breakfast and not in their crumbling schools.

The seismic effect of the shift was, in fact, not nearly as great as that off Japan or under Christchurch in 2011. In Japan, the seismic waves accelerated 2.7 times faster than gravity. In Christchurch they accelerated at twice the speed of gravity but in Mexico at only 0.2 of that speed. Compared with Japan, the sea around Mexico barely rippled.

What caused the great destruction in Mexico City was the combination of geological and human “feet of clay”. The clay beds under the city had a natural resonance similar to the two-second pulses of seismic waves of the earthquake. Consequently, the clay amplified the shock waves six-fold, shifting the ground forty centimetres every two seconds for several minutes. Worse, that frequency evoked resonance in buildings five to fifteen storeys high, causing them to sway up to a metre in all directions, then to crumble or collide with other buildings.

Beneath the ground, the shaken, watery clay subsided. Some areas were more affected but, overall, the old city sank by a third of metre.

The clay feet of humanity further amplified the damage. One report refers to over “twenty design and construction practices” that contributed to the damage, while a newspaper review twenty-three years later claimed the main reason for the collapse of newer buildings was corruption. To this might be added the behaviour of the government: refusing international help and, apparently, using the army to forestall threats to its regime rather than dig for survivors in the critical stage for recovery. 

In our two-storey house in Cuernavaca my wife was looking down, making Vegemite sandwiches for school lunches, when she was overcome with giddiness. She felt seriously ill but looked up to see the light globe arcing on its chord. Some of our children began to scream. She realised it was an earthquake and shouted for them to join her under the lintel of a door but then they ran down the corridor, swaying from wall to wall, with the house shrieking. One boy had awakened to his bed sliding across the floor and turned to punish his brother. One daughter noticed waves leaping from a swimming pool and electric wires colliding with blue sparks. She watched the ground move in waves across the valley, reaching the neighbours’ houses, then ours and beyond. Houses swayed, trees shook and dogs went mad.

When it was over, though the dogs barked forever, my family noted that the swimming pool had emptied by a third, then they began to explore the house. It seemed stable though cracked in places, and one floor had subsided, meaning ping-pong balls would now gather in the middle.

At that time, 7.19 a.m., my fifteen-year-old son and I were on our way to Mexico City, driving over the mountain before descending onto the ancient lake. We felt nothing, but heard great fuss on the radio: some kind of disaster was occurring. I was studying at the Autonomous University, which had not been damaged, but when we arrived people were running wildly and I was asked to join a university “rescue team”. I agreed on condition that my son could stay with me, and we were driven to a nearby hospital.

The long building was about ten storeys high and looked like a piece of rope which had been held and whipped. One end was shredded, so you could see into the open end of each floor. An operating table balanced on the cliff with its large light dangling loosely above. What had happened to the patient, I wondered?

There was a strange immobility and silence at the scene. Surviving staff and patients were standing in clusters, looking at the building. A clutch of doctors was gathered in starched white coats and stethoscopes, staring at a nearby pyramid of rubble which had been ascended by a line of men who were, as if in slow motion, picking up pieces of concrete from the apex and passing them down, one by one. Wind whisked sheets of paper from the rubble.

After a while, I asked one of the doctors what the men were doing and was told they were trying to get the people out. What people? You mean there are people under that? Yes: the entire administrative staff. I looked incredulously at the immobile audience. We all have problems with administration, but surely …? My thoughts were interrupted by our “rescue team commander”, who had just received another request and was demanding we return to our vehicle. I left the doctors in their pristine state.

We returned to the university and I was about to make for Cuernavaca because I had begun to distrust assurances that it had not been affected, but a great demand arose for me to go to another hospital and at very least “prepare bandages” for the wounded that were arriving. It was difficult to say no and we headed for the van but were informed we would have to travel with “volunteer transport” because the van was needed as an ambulance.

We were advised to go to the front of the university and find the “motorbikes”, which I thought was a quirk of my Spanish until we found the equivalent of the Hell’s Angels lined up and were assigned to the rear of a large bike driven by a huge, whiskered, small-helmeted, leather-jacketed creature. I got on behind him followed by my son whom I strongly advised to hold me tightly. I could not bring myself to put my arms around the bikie until he dropped the clutch and we rocketed onto the wrong side of the road. Then I hung onto his leather.

It was frightening. We roared along the broken white line that is supposed to separate the traffic but motoring discipline was never a feature of Mexico and the city, that morning, was like a nest of wild ants. I shouted to my son to keep his legs in and I grasped the petrol tank with spasmed adductors as cars threatened to rip our legs off but swerved around us with inches to spare.

Then we tore up the wrong ramp and onto the peripheral freeway. Somehow we crossed to the right side and I felt relieved we were at least going in the direction of the traffic, if nowhere near its speed. The Periferico was normally a racecourse: that day it was a colisseum. But we were the fastest, weaving through the chariots, with the bike angled so close to the concrete the concept of violent amputation arose again. At the best of times, the smog in Mexico City could bring tears to your eyes: at high speed it caused streaming on the membranes of widened fissures.

When we arrived at our hospital and dismounted, I could scarcely see, was bent, and walked with scissored gait. My elbows were fused and my fingers clawed. My son was in a similar condition. The staff demanded to know who we were and the purpose of our delivery. Our bikie proudly declared he had delivered a doctor.

There were no congratulations or welcomes. I was judged deformed and, in any case, who said there were bandages to roll or casualties unattended? I figured it was time to go home. 

The next day we felt a number of tremors and that night, though there was not much disturbance in Cuernavaca, we learned there had been another earthquake in Mexico City, measuring 7.5. Many unstable buildings collapsed, with further loss of life.

The government had imposed a news blackout but our small Anglican church had learned of the added disaster and decided to send its own “relief team” composed of several Americans, a couple of Mexicans, and me with two teenage sons. We armed ourselves with some picks and shovels, a crowbar and a sledgehammer, complemented with bandages (rolled) and some extra food, and set off to save lives.

We found a long line of apartments whose several storeys had collapsed into layers like sandwiches. It was guarded at both ends by a machine post of soldiers sitting under trees but was otherwise deserted except for another group of “rescuers” about the size of ours who were digging with similar tools about seventy yards away. The sun was out. It was hot. There was no one else, except for the steady stream of pedestrians who moved quietly along the footpath beside the road, watching us silently.

I recalled the massive military parade we had watched from the ranks of a thick crowd several days before. It had been Independence Day (February 16) and I had been surprised by the unending ranks of soldiers and machinery as we jostled to see their disciplined, high-stepping rows. Where was everyone now?

I was assigned the sledgehammer and we began our search for survivors. The roof and walls had fallen from the building and we climbed up the rubble to an exposed kitchen floor which was covered with patterned linoleum. It was a couple of feet above the floor below and we imagined there might be someone under it. I brought the hammer down and shuddered at the impact. A piece of concrete was dislodged. It was going to be a long day.

It was also futile. By nightfall we had managed to create a hole into the kitchen below but no one was waiting to be rescued. Our unknown co-workers down the building, however, had had one success. In the middle of the afternoon we had heard them cheer, watched them dig with frenzy and then withdraw a body which seemed to move.

We had climbed over our end of the building listening and looking. Several bodies protruded here and there and one swollen blue hand, but there had been no signs of life, only the pervading smell of death. One of my sons recalls how he had at first wondered at the sweet smell. Had bottles of strange perfume been crushed throughout the building? He realised its origin when he found his first bodies.

We become disgusted with Mexico that day, unable to comprehend the inactivity of the crowds and the army. Reports have emerged of enthusiastic participation but that was not our experience. Mexico, however, was redeemed by the bravery of a few firemen on the following night. 

Our church had collected clothes and blankets for people from homes destroyed in a certain area and we had arrived at its central square where there was a dry fountain and pond, bordered by a concrete wall about three feet high. On the other side of the square was a building ready to fall. It seemed about ten storeys high. All the windows had been smashed and pieces of glass could be heard crashing to the floor, perhaps loosened by the wind or the continuing after-shocks. Spectators told us they had seen lights on about the seventh floor, as if there was someone up there flashing a torch, and they had called the fire brigade.

As we stared for light in the darkness, a fire truck with an extendable ladder arrived and parked at the foot of the building. We were probably 100 yards away and I had positioned myself beside the wall of the pond, where I proposed to throw myself when the building began to collapse.

Slowly the ladder was extended, as glass tinkled. Then a fireman climbed to the seventh floor and entered a window. We watched him explore the floor with his torch, seeing its beam though window after window. Then we heard him shout to his crew that there was no one there and watched as he climbed out the window and worked his way down the ladder. They all got back in their truck and drove away. It was a magnificent performance.

There was nothing more we could do after that. Passing days extinguished hope except when some living babies were disinterred on the ninth. We continued to hear stories of trapped workers whose bosses valued sewing machines more than seamstresses. And, in occasional visits to Mexico City over the next few weeks, we could not avoid the smell as bulldozers cleared the rubble. Hearing about the corruption of buildings, we had a look at some apartments still standing near the ones we had worked on. The concrete on the balconies could be rubbed into sand, and reinforcing rods were encrusted with rust.

Our children had grown adept at recognising after-shocks with “detectors” hung from lintels: weighted strings which would sway appropriately. These detectors were not as sensitive, however, as the local dogs, whose howling would announce and accompany the tiniest of waves across the valley. Fortunately, our children were not as disturbed as the dogs and they settled down to the mundane challenges of childhood.

Has anything changed in Mexico? The plates continue to grind beneath the sea. Building practices are alleged to have improved but the population of Mexico City has intensified to over twenty vulnerable million. Geographic and anthropomorphic clay is unchanged. The former waits patiently, but the latter is impatient and has taken more lives in the last five years than did the earthquake in 1985. Over 30,000 have died in drug wars. Ironically, many victims are being dug from rubble graves. 

John Whitehall wrote on his experiences with the Tamil Tigers in the October issue.