Quake kills 21 in central Mexico

GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- A powerful earthquake ripped through western and central Mexico, killing at least 21 people, collapsing dozens of houses and leaving the worst-hit state shrouded in darkness with power outages.\nThe death toll continued to rise Wednesday as emergency crews surveyed the extent of the damage hours after the ground had stopped shaking.\nThe quake struck at 8:07 p.m. Tuesday in Colima, a small state that includes the port city of Manzanillo, about 300 miles west of Mexico City.\nMexico's national seismological service put the quake's magnitude at 7.6, but the U.S. Geological Survey calculated it at 7.8.\n"Because of the size of the earthquake and its shallow depth, USGS is expecting substantial damage," said U.S. Geological Survey spokesman Butch Kinerney.\nColima Gov. Fernando Moreno Pena said 19 people were killed, nine in the capital city of Colima and 10 others elsewhere in his state. He did not provide details, but radio reports said most of the victims died after portions of office and residential buildings collapsed near the center of Colima City.\nNearly all of the state remained without electricity and phone service early Wednesday, Moreno Pena said.\nMelchor Usua Quiroz, head of the state's civil defense authorities, told the government news agency Notimex that the quake damaged homes and businesses and briefly left several people trapped in elevators across Colima.\nIn Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and Mexico's second-largest city, the quake leveled 40 homes and left more than 100 people homeless, authorities said.\nAn 85-year-old woman in the town of Zapotitlan died after she rushed out of her house and was crushed by a falling security wall that had ringed her yard. A 1-year-old girl also died in Zapotitlan, but the circumstances surrounding her death remained unclear, authorities said early Wednesday.\nPresident Vicente Fox ordered the military to search for damage near the quake's epicenter, a region that included remote villages in coastal areas of Jalisco and Colima.\nThe quake swayed buildings, briefly knocked out power and telephone service and sent panicked residents running into the streets in Mexico City, but officials said there were no reports of deaths or serious damage there.\n"Fortunately there does not appear to be generalized damage in the city," Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard told reporters.\nImmediately after the quake, police cars drove slowly through the streets of Mexico City with sirens flashing, asking people over loudspeakers: "Is everything OK?"\nThey encountered residents gathered in small groups, many shaking with fear. Others raced to escape the earthquake's wrath so quickly that they had no shoes to cover their bare feet or had grabbed little more than a blanket to guard against the night's chill.\n"I felt it very strongly and I saw all the people leave, very scared," said Victor Morales, a 46-year-old apartment building superintendent in the Condesa neighborhood. "I stayed calm because I trust in God."\nSome earthquakes of magnitude 7 have caused massive damage, but the effect of a quake can be affected by many factors, including its depth and the sort of earth through which it passes as it moves away from the epicenter.\nMexico City is built atop a former lake bed in a mountain valley that acts as an amplifier for the motion of quakes.\nThe last substantial earthquake in the Colima area was in 1995. It registered 8.0 magnitude and killed 49 people. At least 100 people were injured in that quake, which was a little northwest of Tuesday's earthquake.