Magnitude 6.5 earthquake shakes Mexico City and popular tourist destination Acapulco

A strong earthquake shook southern and central Mexico on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring several. Authorities said there did not appear to be any major damage from the quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5. Its epicenter was near the town of San Marcos in the southern state of Guerrero, near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.

This occurred at a depth of 21.7 miles, 2.5 miles north-northwest of Rancho Viejo, Guerrero. The earthquake was felt more than 250 miles away in Mexico City.

Residents and tourists in Mexico City and Acapulco rushed to the streets when the shaking began.

Karen Gomez, a 47-year-old office worker living on the 13th floor of a building in Mexico City, told Agence France-Presse that a siren woke her.

“I woke up terrified. The alert on my cell phone said it was a powerful earthquake,” she said.

The civil protection agency reported various landslides around Acapulco and on other highways in the state.

Local authorities said that in Mexico City, a 60-year-old man died from his injuries after a fall while evacuating his second-floor apartment in the capital, AFP reported. Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada confirmed the death in a statement posted on social networks. In a separate statement on social media, she said at least 12 people were injured in the quake.

The second death was reported nearby in Guerrero. Gov. Evelyn Salgado told reporters that a 50-year-old woman died after her house collapsed.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, whose first press briefing of the new year was interrupted by the quake, said she spoke with Salgado, who initially told her that no serious damage had been reported.

José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, a doctor and human rights activist who lives on one of the peaks surrounding Acapulco, said he heard a loud growl and all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking.

“At that moment the earthquake alert went off on my cell phone,” he said, “and then the shaking started to be strong, with a lot of noise.”

He said the shaking was lighter than in some previous quakes and that he packed a backpack with the essentials to be ready to go as the aftershocks continued.

He said he had been unable to reach friends who live along the Costa Chica, southeast of Acapulco, because communications were down.

Mexico is located between five tectonic plates and is one of the most seismically active countries in the world.

In January 2025, a Magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook a region of southwest Mexico. The quake occurred about five miles from Coalcoman de Vazquez Pallares, a municipality of about 20,000 people, located about 372 miles west of Mexico City. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 53 miles.

In 1985, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake, centered on the Pacific coast, devastated much of central and southern Mexico, killing thousands and causing severe damage in Mexico City.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake on September 19, 2017 killed 369 people, most of them in the capital.

Exactly five years later, on the same date in 2022central Mexico was hit by another earthquake, just hours after millions of people took part in a simulated seismic safety exercise. Impacts from the 7.6 magnitude earthquake extended as far as 1,500 miles to the north, where four-foot-high waves began to bubble inside a cave in Death Valley called Devils Hole.

AFP

contributed to this report.