5.8-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Mexico; Blackouts In Capital [VIDEO]

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico yesterday at around midnight, causing blackouts and driving residents of Mexico City, the nation's capital, out of buildings and into the street. Mexico City's Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera wrote on his Twitter account that power had gone out in several districts in the city but that it had escaped major harm, adding that corrections were being made to earlier reports which had reported that the quake was as big as 6.0-magnitude. No injuries have been reported.

Mexico's National Seismological Service reported that the earthquake's epicenter was in the state of Guerrero, while the US Geological Survey gave its location as 76 miles south of the capital, in Jolalpan in Puebla state. The epicenter's depth reached about 33 miles down. Governors from both states said that as of yet there were no indications of damage.

CNN reported that in an interview with Foro TV, Miguel Ángel Mancera said that in areas of the capital where the power had been knocked out by the quake, public security would be present and keeping vigilant. In the upscale nightlife district of La Condesa in Mexico City, music in the bars was interrupted briefly and residents ventured out into the streets in pajamas while patrol cars and police helicopters surveyed the city. Reuters wrote that buildings in the capital had been shuddering with the force of the quake and that some restaurants and residential buildings there had been evacuated as a precautionary measure. The quake was felt as far away as the cities of Chilpancingo, Acapulco, Oaxaca, Morelia, Colima and Guadalajara.

Mexico City's soft underlying earth makes it especially vulnerable to the earthquakes which routinely strike the region. In 1985 the city became forever associated with quakes after one measuring 8.1 in magnitude ripped through it, causing the deaths of over 10,000 people and the collapse of entire neighborhoods. The last one to hit was in April, when a 5.9-magnitude quake set off alarms in the capital and caused evacuations but little damage and no injuries. In 2012, another measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter in Oaxaca, collapsed a pedestrian bridge in the capital and sent an estimated 500 homes tumbling down in the state of Guerrero.

Reuters reported that no one at state oil company Pemex was available to comment as of press time but that the company has no major installations located near the epicenter.