US aid workers have touched down in Mexico to lend a hand with rescue work as the country reels from Tuesday’s 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which has killed at least 250 people — a number expected to rise as rescuers sift through the rubble.
An “elite” contingent of the US Agency for International Development and specially trained urban rescuers from the Los Angeles County Fire Department landed in Mexico on Thursday, USAID tweeted.
The roughly 70-person squad also included five dogs specially trained to sniff out survivors amid the wreckage.
Meanwhile, rescuers were getting closer to liberating a 12-year-old girl who has been trapped in the ruins of the Enrique Rebsamen elementary school.
Workers pulled the body of a 58-year-old woman from the crumbling school early Thursday, the Mexican Navy told the LA Times.
The woman, whose identity officials were struggling to confirm, is the latest victim of the schoolhouse collapse that has now claimed the lives of at least 21 children and five adults.
With Post Wires