Earthquake in Mexico - photos from our course participants
RPS Partnership - 10 October 2017
Cath Mossom, Head of Training for RPS Partnership, was in Mexico and witnessed first hand the destruction and panic that quickly spread across Mexico city.
Cath was actually sat in a parked taxi outside a shopping mall waiting for her work colleague to grab a few supplies for the HEAT/HET (Hostile Environment Awareness Training/Hostile Environment Training) course that she was about to run for freelance journalists in Mexico. Cath tells us:
"I felt the taxi start to move and at first I thought someone was rocking it from the outside, quickly tho I realised that all the other parked vehicles around me were moving too. Then panic surrounded me, as people started to pour out of the Mall and into the street. Almost at once the communication infrastructure collapsed, as everyone tried to call family and loved ones.
The tremors lasted around 90 seconds; hitting an all-time record of 7.1 in the city and taking place exactly 32 years after the 1985 earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people. The roads both into and out of the city were grid locked almost immediately, not helped at all by the traffic lights all failing to work. We battled on in our taxi for 3 hours to try and reach our training venue – travelling around 10km in 3 hours, before deciding it would be safer to stop for a few hours and then reassess."
Cora Currier, one of the HEAT/HET participants from IWMF went along in the evening to help search for survivors, and took these photos
Corrie is an editor and reporter at the Intercept and her personal contact details are @coracurrier.
So what would you do if you were caught up in a natural disaster? Why not book a place on RPS Partnerships next UK HEAT course 20-22 November and learn how to prepare yourself to work and travel safely in challenging environments – including natural disaster areas !!
Contact us on [email protected] for a registration form and to reserve your place.
Photos: Cora Currier
Mexico city earthquake - the line is where locals formed a line to pass out the rubble whilst trying to find survivors.
Mexico city - rescue workers