📅 On this day
19 September
1985 · The Mexico City earthquake
A magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck off the Pacific coast at 07:19 local time and did catastrophic damage four hundred kilometres away in Mexico City, where the soft old lake bed the city is built on amplified the shaking. Thousands were killed and whole blocks came down in the centre.
One detail from the rescue effort went round the world: a number of newborn babies were pulled alive from the ruins of a collapsed maternity hospital days later. The papers called them the miracle babies.
Your turn
What’s the scariest moment you’ve ever lived through?