Death toll in Mexico quake rises to 245

Rescue workers on Thursday continued to dig though unstable debris to reach a young girl buried beneath the rubble of a school in Mexico City. The building toppled during Tuesday’s earthquake, which killed at least 245 people. Rescuers loaded debris in buckets and used scanners to search for heat signatures that could point to survivors. “We are just meters away from getting to the children, but we can’t access it until it is shored up,” said Vladimir Navarro, one of the volunteers. “With the shaking there has been, it is very unstable and taking any decision is dangerous.” Mexico’s navy earlier on Thursday said it recovered the body of a school worker from the Enrique Rebsamen school but still had not reached the trapped girl. Volunteers elsewhere around the city also continued to search for any signs of life under the debris. Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said rescuers pulled two women and a man from a collapsed office building Wednesday night. Mexico City’s Social Development Department said 52 people have been rescued alive since the quake. At a Wednesday wake in Puebla, near the earthquake’s epicenter, residents gathered to mourn those who died. The Archdiocese of Puebla said 11 members of one family who had gone to baptize their 2-month-old daughter died in a church when the roof collapsed. The girl’s father, the priest, and the priest’s assistant emerged as the only survivors.