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30 Kids Missing, 20 Dead at Mexico City School Leveled in Quake

THE UNTHINKABLE

Death toll at 217 across the country after 7.1-magnitude temblor on tragic anniversary.

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Claudia Daut/Reuters

Officials in Mexico City early Wednesday confirmed 217 fatalities from the magnitude-7.1 quake that struck the south of the country Tuesday afternoon. At least 20 children were killed when part of an elementary school collapsed in Mexico City. The four-story Colegio Enrique Rebsamen private school crumbled in the middle of the school day, killing at least two adults in addition to the nearly two dozen children. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said 22 deaths were confirmed late Tuesday. Thirty children and eight adults remain missing at the site, Nieto told Financiero TV. Rescue crews continued to search for signs of survivors in the wreckage early Wednesday morning. The Daily Beast’s Anna-Cat Brigida reports the quake struck just hours after Mexico City rang its sirens for its annual commemoration of the anniversary of the 1985 quake that killed at least 5,000.

Read it at The Daily Beast