It was on June 28 at the end of a long day of fishing and daylight was fading quickly when Wesley Brough and a friend decided to cast one last time into the tumultuous surf of a Cabo San Lucas beach.
It was a lucky decision: that final cast landed Brough an enormous Pacific snook that might break the world record.
“We were getting ready to go when we saw mullet flying out of the water and decided on a last cast,” said Brough, owner of Cabo Surfcaster, a fishing guide service. “I figured it was another roosterfish. Knowing that there was not enough light for a good picture, I decided to horse him in and get him released. The fish was on the beach in about six minutes and it was definitely not a rooster. To our surprise it was a monster snook like neither of us had ever seen before.”
The 50-inch-long fish weighed 51 pounds, 4.8 ounces according to a certified scale in Cabo San Lucas. The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) world record currently stands at 47 pounds, 8 ounces for a snook caught in 2001, also in Cabo San Lucas.
Snook are rare in the area, and that day Brough and his friend Matt Stehle were looking for roosterfish in the surf generated by Hurricane Enrique. They planned to take pictures then release their catches. The fishing was going well: the pair landed a 50-pound roosterfish, a 45-pound roosterfish and a 25-pound crevalle before Brough reeled in the giant snook. Brough said he would have released the snook as well, but the hook was embedded deep in its throat and it would not have survived.
Brough said he brought in the snook in accordance with IGFA rules and has submitted a world record application. A determination from the association is expected in several weeks.
A frame from the latest video showing one of the president's brothers receiving cash from a former official.
A video has surfaced showing one of President López Obrador’s brothers receiving a large amount of cash from a man who served in the current federal government.
News outlet Latinus published a video on Thursday that shows Martín Jesús López Obrador receiving 150,000 pesos (US $7,550 at today’s exchange rate) from David León, a former advisor to the president and ex-chief of the federal Civil Protection agency.
It’s the second time in less than a year that footage has emerged showing a brother of the president, commonly known as AMLO, receiving cash from León.
León gave Martín Jesús the cash at his home in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, in 2015, according to Latinus, the same year he gave the money to Pío.
David León, seen counting cash in the video, was head of Civil Protection between 2018 and 2020.
The exchanges, filmed by León on hidden cameras, reportedly occurred in the lead-up to the 2015 federal elections, the first elections contested by Morena, Mexico’s ruling party, which was founded by AMLO.
Latinus said that both Martín Jesús and Pío received “previously agreed amounts that are repeatedly monthly and which they say are for Andrés Manuel, which reveals a modus operandi.”
Martín Jesús says in the new video that the money was for his brother, but didn’t specify which one.
None of the money received by the two brothers was reported by Morena to the National Electoral Institute, Latinus said, adding that the failure to disclose the apparent political funding “qualifies as an electoral crime.”
León was an advisor to the Chiapas government and a close associate of then governor Manuel Velasco when he gave the money to the López Obrador brothers. He resigned from the federal government last year after the first two videos emerged and just before he was due to take on a new role at the helm of a state-owned medical supplies distribution company.
He said on Twitter late Thursday that the money he gave to Martín Jesús came from his personal savings and was a loan. He didn’t say what the loan was for.
The president, who has made combatting corruption the central goal of his administration, said Friday that he doesn’t cover up for anyone and that if his brother committed a crime he should be punished.
“If there is proof, he must be reported [to authorities]. All citizens have the responsibility to act and the relevant authority has to rule whether there’s a crime or not,” he said at his morning news conference.
Nevertheless, AMLO claimed that the publication of the latest video is part of a smear campaign against him and asserted that the exchange between Martín Jesús and David León was of a personal nature.
“It’s the perennial black campaign of my adversaries. We’re used to this. But we have always emerged unscathed from slander,” he said.
“… They make it seem that it’s campaign money, political money, money for me – something that’s not true, it’s as simple as that,” the president said.
He added that he has a calm conscience and that the smear campaign is a reaction to the transformation his government is carrying out in Mexico. “When they’re no longer attacking me, I’ll be worried,” AMLO said.
National Action Party senators said on their joint Twitter account that “the López Obrador family is full of corrupt people who should be seated in front of a judge, but they enjoy impunity granted to them by the president.”
Opposition lawmakers have also questioned the legality of a 1.77-million-peso government loan received by José Ramiro López Obrador, another of AMLO’s brothers, while a company owned by the president’s cousin, Felipa Guadalupe Obrador Olán, won four lucrative Pemex contracts in 2019 even though the state oil company ordered her to abstain from participating in its tendering processes.
“President López Obrador can no longer continue saying that his plumage is like those of birds crossing the swamp without getting stained,” Jesús Zambrano, national president of the Democratic Revolution Party – AMLO’s old party – said on Twitter.
“His plumage is already very stained by his own family. Why doesn’t he ask the Financial Intelligence Unit and the prosecutor’s offices to investigate his brother Martín López Obrador?”
A week after preventing an army helicopter from landing by launching firecrackers and throwing stones at it, residents of Aguililla, Michoacán, dug up the city’s makeshift military heliport in an attempt to cut off supplies to soldiers.
Residents of the Tierra Caliente municipality are angry because they’ve been unable to buy basic goods themselves as access to Aguililla has been intermittently cut off by criminal organizations for months.
Many residents say that the soldiers deployed to Aguililla have failed in their mission to combat the warring criminal groups that operate in the municipality – the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Cárteles Unidos – and have consequently turned against them.
A video posted to social media on Thursday shows two backhoes digging up the military’s heliport, located on a hill near the city. One person is seen with a slingshot pointed in the direction of a military base, which sits below the hill.
The person filming the video zooms in on the base, where numerous soldiers are seen standing outside but make no attempts to climb the hill and put an end to the destruction of the heliport.
The army committed this week to ensuring that the Aguililla-Apatzingán highway remains open during daylight hours, but residents say that hasn’t yet occurred.
However, local priest Gilberto Sepúlveda said Thursday evening that the army had begun work to clear the highway and that the situation in Aguililla was calmer than before.
“I believe there have been various advances and there are things that provide hope. General Montealegre told me this morning that there is already an operation in the places where there are blockades and soldiers will be permanently deployed there,” Sepúlveda said in a radio interview.
Despite citizens’ actions against the army – its barracks have also been attacked with stones – Aguililla residents are not seeking conflict with authorities, the priest said, adding that they just want the rule of law to be applied.
“Those of us from here are not the baddies, we’re people caught in the middle of a war and that puts us at risk. … A lot of the protests [against the army] are because [the people] want to be protected,” Sepúlveda said.
President López Obrador on Wednesday called on Aguililla residents – and criminal groups – not to act violently toward authorities and “not do damage” to property.
“There are always ways out [of difficult situations] … and coexistence is being achieved. There should be dialogue and everyone should act responsibly. …. We don’t want anyone to suffer, … we say no to violence,” he said.
The president on Tuesday said he wasn’t like his predecessors and wouldn’t order criminals operating in Aguililla to be exterminated by military force.
“I’m not [Enrique] Peña [Nieto], I’m not Felipe Calderón, I’m not in favor of killing them in cold blood, I’m not in favor of torture, I’m not in favor of the criminal association that there was between organized crime and authorities. We’re different,” López Obrador said.
He added that the army will continue to have a presence in Aguililla, despite residents’ complaints against the military.
Salud Digna’s facilities are clean and modern and offer affordable diagnostic and clinical services to 6.5 million people per year.
For years, I had heard rumors of a place in Guadalajara called Salud Digna, where people of scarce economic means could get an eye examination and a good pair of glasses for a price they could actually afford — and for years, I had wondered about the story behind it.
As I happened to need a new pair of glasses, I looked up the Salud Digna website and discovered that they offered a lot more than eye examinations. A test to determine my blood type would cost me only 55 pesos, and an X-ray of my elbow would run me no more than 180.
Such services required an appointment, which I could easily set up via WhatsApp, but an eye examination — which is free, by the way — required no appointment of any kind.
A few days later, my friend Rodrigo, who also happened to need new glasses, drove me to one of Salud Digna’s four centers in Greater Guadalajara.
I must confess I imagined this clinic would look a bit like a soup kitchen with a long line of weary down-and-outers patiently waiting outside. In reality, there were no lines, neither outside nor inside, thanks to an efficient reception system that quickly had us heading for the optometry area.
A woman receives a free routine eye exam at a Salud Digna clinic.
Everything we could see was clean, sparkling and modern … as were the doctors, nurses and patients — the latter a mix of people who looked to me as if they came from all levels of society.
“A soup kitchen, this is not,” I commented to my compañero.
We waited for our names to be called in front of a big display announcing that Salud Digna now had over 70 centers like this one, all across Mexico and even in the United States, and that they care for 6.5 million people per year.
A friendly optometrist checked my eyes, using what seemed to me very modern equipment. In no time, I was picking out frames for my new bifocals, which cost a total of 480 pesos and would be ready in a week.
Rodrigo was able to pick up his uncomplicated glasses on the spot. He had also taken advantage of their standard offer of a second pair of glasses for half price. “So,” said Rodrigo,” I got an eye examination and two pair of glasses for 290 pesos. Not bad!”
Salud Digna (Health with Dignity) is a nonprofit organization, the brainchild of Mexican meat czar Jesús Vizcarra Calderón, who heads up SuKarne, the biggest exporter of beef, pork and chicken in Mexico. SuKarne slaughters about 1.7 million cattle per year and generates around US $2.8 billion in annual revenue.
Mexican meat czar Jesús Vizcarra made the cover of Fortune for his contributions to the health sector.
“When I was 27 years old, one of my sons suffered a brain hemorrhage,” Vizcarra told the newspaper Milenio‘s Juan Pablo Becerra-Acosta in a long interview in 2015, “and I was impacted by the fact that great numbers of people in Mexico can’t afford health care of any sort.”
The future multimillionaire, it seems, got his start in the business world by selling lemons and guavas as a boy.
“My grandpa had trees filled with them,” he said. “They would have gone to waste, but I would fill a bucket with them and go around selling them with a couple of my friends. My next business venture was canicas (marbles). Playing marbles was the only thing on the mind of boys my age, so I decided to sell them marbles — not just any marbles, but the best quality marbles: las más bonitas [the most beautiful marbles]! So, after a while, everyone called me El Niño de las Canicas [Marble Boy].”
Not so many years later, Vizcarra applied his entrepreneurial skills to his parents’ cattle-fattening business and turned it into a leading company in the international meat industry. After that, he got interested in politics and was elected a senator in Sinaloa.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Salud Digna got its start as a backroom operation in Jesus Vizcarra’s office. The mobile health clinics, which he organized throughout his territory, were warmly received. The demand for these services grew to such an extent that he decided, in 2003, to create a fixed site offering diagnostic services.
Soon, Salud Digna centers were popping up in other parts of Sinaloa, and then all over Mexico. In spite of the fact that they charge less than a third of what private clinics get, they reached financial self-sufficiency in 2007, a fact that caught the attention of Harvard Business School, which offered Salud Digna as a case study to their students, citing one of Jesús Viscarra’s favorite sayings: “Don’t tell me why it can’t be done — tell me how it can.”
One hour after getting his eye exam, Rodrigo Orozco had his new glasses in hand.
Most people I’ve spoken to who went to Salud Digna have found their services at least satisfactory, and several actually rated them excellent. Nevertheless, I found a number of complaints about them on the internet:
“They prescribed glasses for me,” said one man, “but I couldn’t see well with them.”
He went back to Salud Digna and they repeated his eye examination, concluding that their prescription was correct and that he should be able to see through his glasses, but he couldn’t.
I bring up this case because I think it highlights a weak point in the Salud Digna business model. While it works well for most people, it may fail miserably when a special case comes along. Salud Digna could be considered a fast-food-style laboratory, offering what most people need but no more.
So, if an unusual case comes along, Salud Digna cannot provide a specialist who, after many hours and much digging, might get to the bottom of the client’s complaint. After all, if you go to McDonald’s, they’ll fill your belly, but they are not going to cook you your grandma’s favorite recipe.
Some say Salud Digna is a laundering service for cartel money but, counters Vizcarra, “None of my business or social organizations have a financial relationship or dependency on any criminal organization. I always operate within the margins of the law.”
In 2011, Salud Digna expanded to the Latino neighborhoods of South Los Angeles. Graciela Castañeda, right, receives a checkup after years without medical attention.
To end on a positive note, I should mention that in 2016, Salud Digna won Mexico’s National Quality Award for nonprofit organizations that have improved Mexicans’ quality of life. One such Mexican is Rosalía, a satisfied Salud Digna customer.
“People have no idea how much good this organization is doing,” she said. “Amoooo a Salud Digna [I loooove Salud Digna]. Thank God it exists.”
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Rescuers with one of the two bottlenose dolphins in Sinaloa.
After nearly two weeks trapped in an irrigation canal in Sinaloa, a pair of bottlenose dolphins are finally free thanks to the efforts of rescue teams. The two marine mammals entered the canal via the Bay of Altata, ending up in Sataya, a community in the municipality of Navolato.
Water levels were high after heavy rains two weeks ago but as the water dropped, the dolphins were left stranded in the canal.
Wildlife advocate Arturo Islas said that deep mud and the presence of crocodiles complicated initial rescue efforts. At least 10 days had passed by the time a team of rescuers from the Ostok Foundation and the company Dolphin Discovery were able to catch the first dolphin, which was three meters long and estimated to be 30 years old.
After much effort, the team caught it and transported it in a large tub to the Bay of Altata, where it was set free.
It took two more days to locate and catch the second dolphin, which had moved from the area where it was first seen.
“It is an animal of approximately 20 years of age and more than 300 kilos, male, and apparently in good health,” reported Ernesto Zazueta, president of the Association of Zoos, Breeders, and Aquariums.
He said the Culiacán Zoo’s wildlife rescue team, Arturo Islas and the Ostok Foundation, among others, participated in the rescue. The second dolphin was set free in El Contrabando, a fishing camp near the state capital of Culiacán.
After a successful testing period, authorities announced that Mexico City’s Cablebus Lne 1 is ready for its official inauguration on Sunday.
The cable car line runs 9.2 kilometers through a hilly, working-class area in the Gustavo A. Madero borough in the north of the city, and links the Cuautepec neighborhood to the Indios Verdes Metro and bus station.
It takes 33 minutes to travel the length of the line, which has the capacity to transport 144,000 people daily. At the moment, that capacity is limited by health safety measures, which dictate that only six people be allowed per cabin.
A 1.7-kilometer section of the Cablebus line opened in March, to allow local residents to become familiar with the new form of transportation. Now, the entire line will be operational.
Tickets cost 7 pesos (US $0.35) for the general public, but seniors, children under 5 and people with disabilities ride for free. The Cablebus will run 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays and holidays.
Case numbers and hospitalizations are both rising.
States across Mexico are responding to a new increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in a variety of ways, including the introduction of new restrictions.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell confirmed Tuesday that Mexico is now facing a third wave of the pandemic, with case numbers on the rise in almost half of the 32 states.
The Health Ministry reported 9,452 new cases on Thursday – the highest single-day total since February – and 266 Covid-19 deaths, lifting Mexico’s accumulated official totals to 2.56 million infections and 234,458 fatalities. The percentage of recent cases infected with the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus is unclear but the strain that first emerged in India is now circulating in many states.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of young adults across the country remain unvaccinated because the vaccine rollout hasn’t yet reached their age bracket in the place they live.
Here’s a summary of the coronavirus situation in nine of the 32 states.
Mexico City
Mexico’s capital and largest city has been the national coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic and easily leads the country for confirmed cases and deaths with more than 701,000 of the former and 44,715 of the latter.
There are currently more than 17,000 active cases in Mexico City, according to Health Ministry estimates, far more than in any other state. However, the capital is currently at the second lowest risk setting on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map – medium risk yellow – and is set to remain that color until at least July 18.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged Thursday that hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients have risen, explaining that the increase has been driven by serious illness among young people.
“Yes there is an increase in hospitalizations but there is sufficient capacity in all Mexico City hospitals. The age of people entering hospitals is lower [than earlier in the pandemic], the number of deaths associated with Covid in hospitals is lower … and the number of intubated people is also lower,” she said.
Despite the increase in cases and hospitalizations, no new restrictions will be introduced for the time being, Sheinbaum said. However, the Mexico City government has launched a new information campaign urging residents to act responsibly, follow health rules and get vaccinated when the opportunity arises.
Covid case numbers since the start of the pandemic.
Jalisco
Authorities in Jalisco have increased patrols of bars and other entertainment venues to ensure compliance with health protocols as case numbers rise in the western state. More than 400 new cases were recorded in Jalisco on Thursday, according to state government data, pushing the accumulated tally above 256,000.
Despite a recent increase in cases, the implementation of new restrictions is off the table for now in the green light low risk state.
“We don’t want to take restrictive measures again,” said Enrique Ibarra, the state government’s general secretary.
The official said that new cases among people aged 20 to 34 are fueling Jalisco’s growing outbreak, which he blamed on the more transmissible Delta strain.
Nevertheless, authorities are still aiming to reopen schools in late August and don’t want to interrupt the reactivation of the tourism sector and the economy more widely, said state official Alejandro Guzmán Larralde.
Jalisco currently has more than 1,300 active coronavirus cases, according to federal estimates, and has recorded 12,649 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Sinaloa
Authorities in Sinaloa have also stepped up vigilance of bars, cantinas, restaurants, casinos and other entertainment venues across all 18 municipalities to enforce compliance with virus mitigation measures. Sinaloa’s epidemic curve has shown a clear upward trajectory in recent weeks and there are now more than 2,200 estimated active cases in the northern state.
Health Minister Efrén Encinas Torres said authorities are increasing the number of beds available for Covid-19 patients at hospitals across the state. He highlighted that the number of Covid beds at the Mazatlán General Hospital has been doubled to 60.
Federal data shows that Sinaloa currently has the second highest occupancy rate in the country for general care hospital beds with 44% taken.
Meanwhile, Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel announced Thursday that he had submitted a formal request to the federal government for more Covid-19 vaccines. The aim is to roll out vaccines to people in the 30-39 age bracket starting in high risk areas such as Culiacán and Mazatlán, he said.
Sinaloa, currently yellow on the stoplight map, has recorded almost 45,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and 6,511 Covid-19 deaths.
Oaxaca
Infections among young people are also driving a growing outbreak in Oaxaca, a green light state with an estimated 826 active cases. In light of the situation, the state government has ordered the suspension of all large events and is overseeing stricter enforcement of existing health measures.
Health Minister Juan Carlos Márquez said the coronavirus situation is worsening in 47 municipalities. Oaxaca city and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region are among the areas of concern, he said.
About one-third of general care Covid hospital beds are taken in the state and at least seven hospitals are at 100% capacity. Oaxaca has recorded more than 49,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 3,841 Covid-19 deaths.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Sonora
Case numbers in the northern border state have recently risen above 200 per day, with most detected in Hermosillo, where almost half of all Covid-designated hospital beds are taken.
The state ranks third in Mexico for its general care bed occupancy rate, which is currently 38%. Health Minister Enrique Clausen Iberri said that private hospitals are reporting an occupancy rate of 57%. In the Sonora State General Hospital in Hermosillo, 31% of Covid patients are in serious condition on ventilators, he said.
Sonora is currently medium risk yellow on the federal stoplight map and a range of restrictions remain in place. The state has an accumulated case tally of more than 81,000 and has recorded a total of 6,891 Covid-19 deaths.
Veracruz
The epidemic curve is also trending upwards in the Gulf coast state but Governor Cuitláhuac García ruled out imposing new restrictions because hospital occupancy levels are low “in comparison with the rapid growth in infections.”
Federal data shows that almost 29% of general care beds are occupied in Veracruz, where there are currently nearly 2,200 active cases.
The yellow light state has recorded more than 67,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and over 10,000 Covid-19 deaths.
Baja California Sur
Currently high risk orange on the stoplight map, BCS has the highest hospital occupancy rate in the country with almost 72% of general care beds taken and 55% of those with ventilators in use. The occupancy rate in some hospitals in the state is much higher, forcing authorities to introduce new restrictions, especially in the tourist hotspots of Los Cabos and La Paz.
The state government announced that beaches in Los Cabos would be limited to 30% of normal capacity between July 8 and 15 and those in La Paz would be closed. Lower maximum capacity levels were also set to take effect at retailers such as department stores.
In Comondú, Loreto and Mulegé, authorities said they would ramp up vigilance at shops, entertainment venues and beaches to ensure compliance with health protocols. All sporting events have been suspended in Loreto, and some BCS communities such as Bahía Tortuga and Punta Abreojos have introduced voluntary 10:00 p.m curfews, among other measures aimed at stopping or slowing the spread of the virus.
BCS has recorded more than 42,000 accumulated cases and 1,628 Covid-19 deaths. More than 2,700 of the cases are estimated to be active, meaning that the state currently has the third largest active outbreak in the country after Mexico City and México state.
Yucatán
The health system in Yucatán is also under pressure with 55% of beds with ventilators taken and some hospitals reporting 100% capacity in their Covid units. The state, orange on the stoplight map, has seen a recent increase in case numbers, and currently has an estimated 2,179 active infections.
Governor Mauricio Vila recently announced that some beaches in the state would be closed on weekends, including those in Progreso, located 40 kilometers north of state capital Mérida. An 11:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m curfew is in place across the state.
Yucatán’s accumulated case tally is almost 49,000 while its official Covid-19 death toll is 4,400.
Nuevo León
Authorities in Nuevo León, a yellow light state with more than 1,800 estimated active cases, have ruled out a return to in-person classes when the new school year begins on August 30. No date has yet been set for a reopening of schools, said Governor Jaime Rodríguez, explaining that it was impossible to do so because of the growing coronavirus outbreak.
Nuevo León has recorded more than 129,000 accumulated cases and almost 10,000 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Covid units in the state’s hospitals are currently about one-quarter full on average.
The federal Attorney General's Office has been investigating former Interjet CEO Miguel Alemán Magnani since the beginnning of the year.
A federal judge on Thursday issued a warrant for the arrest of former Interjet CEO Miguel Alemán Magnani on 66-million-peso (US $3.3 million) tax fraud charges.
The warrant was issued in Mexico City on the request of the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), according to court officials.
The FGR has been investigating the ex-chief of the beleaguered airline since the beginning of the year. Interjet faced a slew of problems in 2020, including cash flow shortages and flight cancellations, before ceasing operations in December. The airline announced earlier this year that it was filing for bankruptcy.
The issuing of the arrest warrant comes five months after the Office of the Federal Tax Prosecutor filed a complaint against Alemán with the FGR for allegedly failing to pay almost 66.3 million pesos in taxes owed by Interjet. The money the company should have paid but allegedly didn’t was income tax it was required to withhold from employees’ salaries in December 2018.
Court officials told the newspaper El Financiero that an Interpol red notice against Alemán, who is a part owner of Interjet, could be issued in the coming days.
“The Interpol red notice would be issued if it’s proven he’s out of the country … but that would take a few days,” they said.
Alemán is the son of businessman and former governor of Veracruz Miguel Alemán Velasco and the grandson of former president Miguel Alemán Valdés.
Interjet said in April that it intended to resume operations as soon as possible, but whether it will be in a financial position to do so is unclear. The budget carrier owes 47.6 million pesos to airport operator Pacific Airport Group and has other large debts to tax authorities and creditors.
A month and a half old baby was rescued with its parents after their vehicle was swallowed by a sinkhole Tuesday in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The family had been driving to take the baby to daycare when their vehicle suddenly nose-dived as the road gave way.
Video footage shows passing drivers going to the family’s aid and arms extending from the vehicle to pass the baby to safety, before the father and mother emerge unscathed.
The mother said she feared for the life of her baby and thanked God that the accident resulted in nothing more than damage to the vehicle. No injuries were recorded.
Meanwhile, in the nearby city of Nuevo Laredo three sinkholes are reported to be disrupting the flow of traffic.
Sinkholes have become a prominent talking point of late. An 126-meter chasm near Puebla city, which first appeared in late May, has become a tourist attraction, sparked an animal welfare debate, and has inspired a cake, a floral arrangement and cumbia song.
Other smaller sinkholes have since emerged in Hidalgo, Mexico City, Yucatán and Tabasco.
Every year on September 19, Mexico holds a nationwide public drill to mark the anniversary of the 1985 earthquake that killed an estimated 9,500 people and devastated families across the country. In 2017, a mere two hours after the commemorative drill, Mexico City trembled again in a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, which killed more than 200 people in the capital and the states of Puebla, Mexico and Morelos.
The Mexican republic is located in a highly seismic region on the planet, as it is crossed by the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Additionally, along the west coast of Mexico, the Cocos and North American tectonic plates meet in a subduction zone that creates frequent earthquakes.
Just offshore, the Guerrero Gap presents a particular concern to scientists due to its proximity to Mexico City, which has already suffered multiple devastating earthquakes. Located over a sinking aquifer, Mexico’s capital is particularly susceptible to earthquakes as a result of the compacting of the ancient lakebed on which the city was built.
There are debates amongst seismologists about which parts of Mexico are most likely to yield the next big earthquake. It could be from off Michoacán coast, where, according to the National Seismologic Service (SSN), minor earthquakes occur daily.
It could also be from southeast of the Guerrero Gap, or indeed in the Gap itself, which could produce an earthquake of catastrophic magnitudes.
The Ring of Fire is characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. United States Geological Service
Some of the poorest states in Mexico are among those most prone to earthquakes, including Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guerrero. They are additionally often subject to hurricanes and floods.
Historically, families in these states have some of the lowest income rates in the country and some of the highest illiteracy rates, which are aggravated by economic and personal losses as a result of natural disasters.
The exacerbation of social disparities as a result of these disasters is in many ways much more difficult to repair than the physical destruction, and it continuously affects everything in a cyclical way.
Earthquakes alone, however, do not cause deaths. Rather, it is the failure to prepare for the eventuality that an earthquake will occur that continues to make them devastating. Structural preparation and a culture of preparedness has been shown to be the way to mitigate disasters, but this is only effective where there is the political will to make it happen.
Take Chile, for instance, which has historically been subject to a large number of high-magnitude earthquakes, including, in 1960, the Valdivia quake, the largest one recorded in the 20th century. Today, the nation is held up as a model of earthquake preparedness.
In 2014, Chile experienced an 8.2 magnitude quake that resulted in proportionately few casualties. And why? Because there were rules and guidelines in place to prepare for it.
Victim being rescued from debris in Mexico City’s disastrous 1985 earthquake.
More than one million people were evacuated from coastal areas in a matter of hours, and the country has strict building codes which now require new buildings to withstand a 9.0 magnitude quake without collapsing.
This was not always the case. After the 2010 earthquake and tsunami, which killed thousands, reform of Chile’s national strategies to deal with disasters was not only possible but also popular. The failure to prepare for the 2010 quake exposed the need for a dialogue between the people on the ground in coastal communities and the legislators in government whose policies determine how risks are mitigated and disasters are managed.
Chile’s example offers up some big-picture solutions for countries across Latin America, and indeed for earthquake-prone regions across the globe.
Earthquakes in countries along tectonic boundaries are an unavoidable part of nature’s law. Notwithstanding the fact that these events are necessarily going to happen, they do not have to be devastating to communities, and to nations, if widespread structural change is made.
In Mexico, this means opening a dialogue between the people in power who are responsible for disaster risk management and those living their day-to-day lives in constant apprehension of the next catastrophe.
Ultimately, earthquakes are far from mysterious acts of God. They are natural disasters that nations can, and must, prepare for in order to not simply maintain a damaging status quo with regards to their disaster response (or lack of). The real question at hand is not whether Mexico is awaiting another earthquake of the magnitudes of 1985 and 2017, or whether the country must get used to smaller earthquakes occurring consistently over time.
Three years after Mexico’s 2017 earthquake, Marión Angélica Ferra of Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, was still living in her home with no roof, lost in the quake.
The real question is whether the powers-that-be have an interest in fighting the legislative battles necessary to ensure that when the next earthquake does strike — as it certainly will — a safety net will have been fixed in place.
It is already too late to be talking about earthquakes when they occur; instead, discussions must happen during the gaps in between — when there is the time and the space to do something about them.
The time to be talking about earthquakes is now.
Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.
