It struck on the exact anniversary of the 1985 disaster, hours after the city had finished its yearly earthquake drill. This time the sirens were real.
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DownloadThe 2017 Puebla earthquake struck on September 19, 2017, registering magnitude 7.1 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 45× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 18.55°N, 98.49°W, at a depth of about 48 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 369 people were killed.