<Anchor>
17 patients died as electricity at the hospital was cut amid flood damage in central Mexico.
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck southwest Mexico.
Correspondent Kim Jeong-gi.
<Reporter> The
hallways of a general hospital in Tula, central Mexico, are filled with rainwater.
Staff struggle to move patients across knee-high water.
However, as the electricity was cut off, the intensive care unit ventilator stopped.
Of the 57 patients who were hospitalized, 17 eventually died.
Of these, 16 were confirmed as COVID-19 patients.
It is a catastrophe that has occurred as the river overflowed and the city center was flooded with heavy rain that had been going on since last weekend.
Mexican authorities explained that the sudden flooding caused the power outage and that the hospital generators did not work.
[Residents: The river started to overflow, and the roads and houses were all submerged in an instant.] The
flood also completely submerged 2,000 nearby households.
The riverside has turned into a chaos as vehicles such as trucks and buses tangled up.
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred at 8:47 pm local time in Acapulco, a resort town in southwestern Mexico.
After the first earthquake occurred, 73 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or less continued for about an hour.
Some buildings were damaged and one person was killed by a fallen street lamp.
[Kim Yong-oh / Mexican citizen: Communication was not restored…
Citizens are very concerned about the continuing bad news.]
Today's (8th) earthquake happened on the same day as the Chiapas earthquake in southern Mexico in 2017, which unfortunately had a magnitude of 8.2 and killed about 100 people.
(Video editing: Yonghwa Jung)