Police, firefighters and ordinary Mexicans are digging frantically through the rubble of collapsed schools, homes and apartment buildings, looking for survivors of Mexico's deadliest earthquake in decades as the number of confirmed fatalities climbed to 249.
Adding poignancy and a touch of the surreal, yesterday's magnitude-7.1 quake struck on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 earthquake that killed thousands.
Just hours earlier, people around Mexico had held earthquake drills to mark the date.
One of the most desperate rescue efforts was at a primary and secondary school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-story building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete slabs.
A mix of neighbourhood volunteers, police and firefighters used trained dogs and their bare hands to search through the school's rubble.
The crowd of anxious parents outside the gates shared reports that two families had received Whatsapp messages from girls trapped inside, but that could not be confirmed.
The rescue effort was punctuated by cries of ``Quiet!'' so searchers could listen for any faint calls for help.