Earthquake Strikes in Oaxaca State, Mexico, Stirring Fear
But two people were killed hours later when a military helicopter bringing Mexico’s interior minister, Alfonso Navarrete Prida,
and the governor of the state of Oaxaca to a town near the quake’s epicenter crashed, the Interior Ministry said.
The movement of the two plates relative to each other is very slow — about two to three inches a year —
but it causes stresses to build, either at the boundary between the two plates or, as was the case with the September quakes, within one of them.
Shortly after Friday’s quake, the United States Geological Survey released a brief initial analysis, saying
that it occurred "on or near" the boundary between the two plates, and about 55 miles north of the Middle America Trench, where the Cocos begins its slide beneath the North America plate.
The quake was reported at 5:39 p.m. local time, shaking buildings about 225 miles away in Mexico City, where the memory of a Sept. 19 earthquake
that killed more than 300 people in the capital and other parts of the country is still fresh.
The two people killed were on the ground, and a number of other people were injured, the Interior Ministry said.
In addition to local destruction, strong Mexican earthquakes often cause damage in Mexico City — even if, as in this case, the capital is miles away.