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Mexico: As quake search continues, thousands homeless

Search and rescue workers remove rubble a bucket at a time while standing on the debris of a felled office building brought down by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake, in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. As rescue operations stretched into day 6, residents throughout the capital have held out hope that dozens still missing might be found alive. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Search and rescue workers remove rubble a bucket at a time while standing on the debris of a felled office building brought down by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake, in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. As rescue operations stretched into day 6, residents throughout the capital have held out hope that dozens still missing might be found alive. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) Search and rescue workers remove rubble a bucket at a time while standing on the debris of a felled office building brought down by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake, in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. As rescue operations stretched into day 6, residents throughout the capital have held out hope that dozens still missing might be found alive. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

By Associated Press 2 min read

MEXICO CITY (AP) – As the search continued Sunday for survivors and the bodies of people who died in quake-collapsed buildings in Mexico, thousands of people have been left homeless because their houses or apartment buildings are uninhabitable.

Specialists have fanned out to inspect buildings and determine which are unsafe after Tuesday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake, which has killed at least 318. Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente reported the new death toll on Twitter and said 180 of the deaths came in the capital.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera reported that 7,649 properties have been examined and 87 percent of those are safe and require only minor repairs. But that means about 1,000 left standing have been determined to be uninhabitable – and the number seemed likely to rise as more are inspected.

Mancera also said Saturday night on Twitter that nearly 17,000 people have been “attended to” at 48 shelters, though it’s not clear how many of those are being housed there. Many are bunking with family or friends.

Families have been camped out for days at the site of collapsed apartment and office buildings awaiting word on missing loved ones and holding out hope they may still be found alive.