A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico on Tuesday, in Puebla state, 123km from Mexico City.
At least 217 people have been killed, including 86 in Mexico City, 71 in Morelos and 43 in Puebla state.
It was the most powerful earthquake since one which hit Mexico City in 1985, killing thousands.
Citizens and rescuers were working through the night to dig people out of rubble.
Dozens of buildings have collapsed, including more than 40 in Mexico City alone.
Government officials have said at least 21 children and several adults have died at an elementary school in the city, after it partially collapsed. 500 soldiers and Navy marines are among those searching for children and employees still missing.
15 people were reportedly killed when a church on the slopes of a volcano - which appeared to have a small eruption following the earthquake - collapsed during a mass.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has called for calm as the authorities assess the damage.
More than 11 aftershocks have been registered, with the strongest reaching magnitude 4.
World leaders have expressed their sympathy and offered support to Mexico, which was still reeling from a fatal earthquake in the south of the country just two weeks ago.
The US Geological Survey predicted up to 1,000 fatalities will come from the earthquake, and an economic impact of between US$1bn and $10bn.
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The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has released updated advice for people planning to travel to Mexico today:
On Tuesday 19 September 2017 there was an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 near Puebla, Mexico – approximately 140km south-east of Mexico City. Damage has been severe. Mexico City airport was closed temporarily, but has now reopened. Please contact your airline in the first instance if you are due to fly out on 19 or 20 September. Local authorities are opening up shelters for those most badly affected, details will be released by Proteccion Civil. If you are in the area, you should follow the advice of the local authorities. The British embassy in Mexico City remains closed and phone lines are intermittent due to structural damage. If you require emergency assistance, please call +44 (0)20 7008 1500.
Puente has released an update to the death toll – increasing by one. The figure now stands at 217, he says; another person having died in the south-western state of Guerrero.
Desperate parents and rescue workers have been pulling through rubble in a floodlit search for dozens of young children feared buried under a MexicoCity school destroyed by the country’s most lethal earthquake in a generation.
On Twitter, the head of the country’s civil protection agency has called for people to mobilise at 8am local time (2pm UK time) to help those communities hit by the earthquake.
Luis Felipe Puente(@LUISFELIPE_P)
.@CruzRoja_MX solicita que los apoyos de ayuda a la población se reactiven a las 8 am, exhortamos a la población a continuar en la mañana. pic.twitter.com/lKy09ve1zE
Nearly half of those killed by the 7.1 magnitude quake were in the capital, 32 years to the day after another devastating earthquake and less than two weeks after a powerful tremor killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country.
There were chaotic scenes at the ruin of the Enrique Rebsamen school, as parents clung to hope their children had survived, the Reuters news agency reported. Soldiers and firefighters found 22 dead children and two adults, while another 30 children and 12 adults were missing, President Enrique Pena Nieto said.
“They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter,” 32-year-old Adriana D’Fargo told Reuters.
Three survivors were found at around midnight. “Relatives of Fatima Navarro,” one soldier shouted through cupped hands at the school the Coapa district in the south of the city. “Fatima is alive.”
The quake had killed 86 people in the capital by early Wednesday morning, according to the civil protection chief, Luis Felipe Puente. That was fewer than he had previously estimated. In Morelos State, just to the south, 71 people were killed, with 43 in Puebla. Another 16 people were reported killed in the states of Mexico, Guerrero and Oaxaca.
The Mexican public education secretary, Aurelio Nuño, said four of the dead were in the Mexico City campus of the Tecnológico de Monterrey university. He added that 40 people were also injured.
Aurelio Nuño(@aurelionuno)
En el @TecdeMonterrey, campus Ciudad de México, cuatro personas murieron y hubo 40 heridos.
There is hope that the number of people killed in the earthquake could be slightly lower than feared. Less than an hour ago, the head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, Luis Felipe Puente, put it at 248. But he has since revised the figure down to 216 people.
A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico on Tuesday, in Puebla state, 123km from Mexico City.
At least 248 people have been killed, including 55 in Morelos, 49 in Mexico City, and 32 in Puebla state.
It was the most powerful earthquake since one which hit Mexico City in 1985, killing thousands.
Citizens and rescuers were working through the night to dig people out of rubble.
Dozens of buildings have collapsed, including more than 40 in Mexico City alone.
Government officials have said at least 21 children and several adults have died at an elementary school in the city, after it partially collapsed. 500 soldiers and Navy marines are among those searching for children and employees still missing.
15 people were reportedly killed when a church on the slopes of a volcano - which appeared to have a small eruption following the earthquake - collapsed during a mass.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has called for calm as the authorities assess the damage.
More than 11 aftershocks have been registered, with the strongest reaching magnitude 4.
World leaders have expressed their sympathy and offered support to Mexico, which was still reeling from a fatal earthquake in the south of the country just two weeks ago.
The US Geological Survey predicted up to 1,000 fatalities will come from the earthquake, and an economic impact of between US$1bn and $10bn.
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