Desperate parents, missing children at quake-hit Mexico City school

– Picks, shovels and hands –

Fargo’s husband joined the hundreds of soldiers, firefighters and rescuers clawing away at the debris since the quake struck.

Armed with picks, shovels and even their bare hands, the crew worked through the night in their desperate search for survivors.

“Silence, please!” a police officer barked through a megaphone. “Don’t walk, don’t breathe, we’re trying to hear voices!” Any sign of life from under the rubble was welcome.

A stream of volunteers, many with lamps attached to their helmets, carried long wooden beams to prop up building sections that were in danger of collapsing.

Other volunteers formed a human chain to hand baskets of bottled water to the rescuers. The baskets then returned filled with debris.

Maria del Pilar Marti, a teacher who works at the Enrique Rebsamen school, said that many children stayed in the building when the quake hit.

“We had to take cover in our classrooms until the quake ended,” she told Televisa news. “Then we were covered in a cloud of dust when part of the building totally collapsed.”

Tuesday’s earthquake struck as the country was recovering from an 8.2 magnitude quake that hit on September 7 in southern Mexico, killing around 100 people and destroying homes.

In the aftermath Mexican authorities said they had inspected the country’s schools, and verified that the structures were quake resistant.

The earthquake also hit on the anniversary of a massive 1985 quake that killed more than 10,000 people, an event that still haunts a country that has seen its share of disasters.

– ‘It’s chaos’ –

Power outages, intermittent cell phone coverage and roads closed due to debris complicate the rescue.

In front of the school, two people sat at a table with a computer at an informal control center, keeping track of the children and teachers who died, those who were rescued and those still missing.

“It’s chaos … there are children that escaped the school but were injured, and are alone in hospitals without their parents,” one of the people keeping track of the victims told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Meanwhile here at school there are desperate parents that can’t find their children.”