Mexico City Earthquake 1957

Mexico 1957

To this day I have not decided, which is worse, sitting helplessly in a flimsy shelter waiting for the bombs to hit you or experiencing an earthquake. In any case, the earthquake which I had the “privilege “ to encounter was, though the strongest Mexico City had had in thirty or so years, only frightening as far as I was concerned, since I was in no way harmed. Looking back, it was almost funny.

I had been to a movie with a friend, a Peruvian who was studying in Mexico and we had come to his place for a late cup of coffee.He shared an apartment with two American students in a residential section of the city. Two rooms, one with three beds and the other,really a large, kitchen.The entrance to this apartment ran along the outside wall to the top of the garage.

It was about midnight when we arrived. One of the Americans was awake and the three of us settled around the kitchen table with our coffee. Slowly the Peruvian emerged as a story teller.At first he just told us about his country but slowly he started telling ghost stories. One after the other. This way we spent the next two hours. Drinking coffee and listening to ghost stories. Until,all of a sudden we just sat,not speaking, not asking any more questions, just staring in front of us.

I was sitting at the outside corner of the table, looking at nothing in particular, when my glance went to the opposite corner and it seemed to lift.I said, very calmly, “Fico,look the corner.” It seemed to have lifted. He looked up and over to the corner to which I was pointing, rose, said “earth quake, get out, don’t run” and moved to the bedroom behind me to wake the sleeping room mate,Mike.Big,burly, Ken, to my right, jumped up,almost pushed me against the table and ran to the outside door,stumbling all the way to the ground, dashing to a parked car in the driveway, crawled into it, head first but immediately backed out of it since his big body didn’t fit into the car and huffed to the front gate which was locked. I had tried not to run but nearly fell over a thin wire fence in the front yard and arrived at the same time at the gate as Ken did. So did Fico who calmly started putting the key to the chain lock into the keyhole, unlock the chain and open the gate to let us out onto the street.

The world around us was totally dark except for the light of a taxi which slowly drove toward us. As a child I had seen the movie “San Francisco” and remember the earth shaking and breaking open. I stood next to Fico, holding on to his jacket for protection, looking around and expecting the ground to open up. Fico also just stood, calmly looking at the pavement, waiting for something to happen while the earth around us groaned and grumbled and Mexico City remained dark and the hills around us had become visible.

After a bit life had quieted down. All we could hear was the noise of the cars roaring out of the city. Fico and I started walking toward Insurgentes, the artery which bisects the city all the way into the country and finally into the water in Acapulco. Essentially, this road is built on a fault, which I learned a few weeks later, taking the bus to Acapulco.There you can see how the earth ripped apart millions of years ago. Today it was not as bad as that. The first damage we saw was the statue of “El Angel” which had toppled off its very high pole. We managed to grab a taxi which took us to my side of town. We slowly drove down my short street past the inhabitants clad in varying modes of night attire. Arriving at the top floor of my small apartment building I encountered my neighbor Sam groping through his apartment for candles. “Don’t even bother to go and disturb Catinka. She didn’t make a sound and is fine.” Obviously, I did not follow his well meaning advice and quietly opened the door. Out of the dark came Catinka’s voice. “Mammi, what was that shaking? I took my pillow and pretended I was sitting on the swings. And the lamp fell over.”.

So I dressed her and we went outside to reconnoiter.Not far from our short street on Insurgentes our feet crunched on glass as we passed the modern Sears Roebuck building. Across the street a six story Automobile showroom had completely collapsed, burying the care taker family. Slowly, as we made our way into town we encountered more destruction. As far as I was concerned. this was enough to frighten me to the core. Lying in bed at night I was never sure if I just imagined an aftershock or if the world around me had again moved.

I am sure one can get used to everything, even the constant threat of earthquakes.
Personally, I would prefer not to have to adjust to either. The difference,though, is, we humans can do something about bombs but are helpless when faced with the movement of the tectonic plates or the fiery discharges of volcanoes.