Mexico City remembers the 1985 earthquake that changed everything

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Every Sept. 19, residents of Mexico City ask themselves an unsettling question: “Is the ground shaking?”

On that day 40 years ago, at 7:19 a.m., a 8.1-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks left the Mexican capital devastated. Official counts put the death toll around 12,000, but the real number remains unknown.

The earthquake was a watershed moment for the city. A new culture of civil defense evolved, better warning systems developed, building codes changed and, since 2004, there have been annual earthquake drills held on that day.

Then, on that very same day in 2017, things changed again. Barely two hours after the annual drill, a 7.1-magnitude temblor began shaking the ground; its epicenter was so close to the capital that the warning alarms didn’t even sound.

Nearly 400 died this time and word spread in an instant on social media, but the destruction showed some lessons still hadn’t been learned, as many deaths could have been prevented.

Whether the ground shakes or not, Sept. 19 continues to rattle residents of the capital, because for many there are symbols across the city that have not been forgotten.

Here are some of them:

In 1985's predigital world, one image from the earthquake became seared into public memory: the sign of the luxurious Hotel Regis crowning the pile of rubble that the early 20th-century building — a center of political, artistic and social life – was reduced to.

Today, vendors’ stalls cover the area where its grand pillars once stood, a site dubbed Solidarity Plaza in honor of the thousands of average people who came out that day to help.

A red cloud grew before the eyes of the young accounting student, Enrique Linares, now 62. “I didn’t know what it was,” he recalled. People were running down the street, doctors with white lab coats chalked with red dust. Linares looked up at the void where the 12-story tower with a red light on top should have stood. It was then that he began to shake and realized that the hospital had collapsed.

The search for survivors went on for days with soldiers controlling access to the site. After about a week, the effort was rewarded: several recently born infants were rescued alive from the rubble. They were dubbed the “miracle babies,” even inspiring a television series about them.

First came the screams from the seamstresses buried under one of the capital’s collapsed textile plants, recalled Gloria Juandiego, now 65. Soon after, the screams were from people like her outside the rubble, who shouted that others were trapped inside. The soldiers did nothing, she said.

“The bosses got the equipment out, the raw materials, their safe boxes, they prioritized that,” she said. They didn’t let them tear up the salvaged clothing to make tourniquets. Then came the smell and the image of how “the bodies were tossed into trucks, even as more and more women came out to demand authorities rescue their colleagues. In the end, hundreds of seamstresses, normally holed up working 12-hour days without breaks, died.

“Our submission was buried under the rubble,” a popular sign at the time read. It was the start of the Sept. 19 seamstress union to fight for decent working conditions.

And yet, on Sept. 19, 2017, another earthquake trapped textile workers laboring in similar conditions with heavy machinery in a poorly constructed building. The only difference was that this time the victims were immigrants.

“We were digging with sardine cans and our hands,” recalled Francisco Camacho, now 66. In 1985, he was one of the young people looking for survivors of a collapsed apartment building on Tlatelolco Plaza, where today a sun dial marks the time of the earthquake.

A woman organized a chain of volunteers removing buckets full of debris. Children brought water. Camacho recalled the tenor Plácido Domingo, who was also helping, saying the volunteers were making holes and crawling into them “as if they were moles."

And so a volunteer rescue group known as “Los Topos” (The moles) was born. The organization has grown from 20-some amateurs to a diverse force of some 1,200 people today. Now, a powerful symbol of Mexican solidarity, they have traveled to 32 countries to assist at times of catastrophe. They continue training every Sunday for what could happen next.

Camacho, now director of “Los Topos,” said pride in his work is matched by the indelible memory of having to place “many decomposing” bodies in the capital’s baseball stadium in 1985, an experience that left the smell of death “impregnating my nose for months."

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FILE - Emergency workers carry hospital patient Rubalcada Pena after rescuing him from the rubble of Mexico City's Juarez Hospital, which was destroyed by an earthquake, Sept. 26, 1985. (AP Photo/Jack Smith, File)

People bring flowers to site where seamstress died inside a textile plant that collapsed in the 1985 earthquake on the 40th anniversary of the quake in the Obrera neighborhood of Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Orbach)

FILE - People inspect the destroyed Hotel Regis after an earthquake hit Mexico City, Sept. 19, 1985. (AP Photo/Paul Conklin, File)

Carlos Cienfuegos, commander of the Topos volunteer rescue workers brigade, attends a ceremony marking the 1985 earthquake's 40th anniversary in Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

FILE - Clothing, cloth, and flowers are arranged in a memorial that includes the messages in Spanish: "Our lives matter" and "Our bodies are not trash," at the site of a textile factory that collapsed in an earthquake in Mexico City, Sept. 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

An Indigenous woman uses incense for a blessing at the 1985 earthquake memorial during a ceremony marking the quake's 40th anniversary in Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Francisco Camacho, of the Topos volunteer rescue workers brigade, left, and an Indigenous woman, attend a ceremony marking the 1985 earthquake's 40th anniversary in Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Military school cadets carry a Mexican flag during a ceremony marking the 1985 earthquake's 40th anniversary in Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration's massive immigration crackdown.

The president's threat comes a day after a federal immigration officer shot and wounded a Minneapolis man who had attacked the officer with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger radiating across the Minnesota city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a Renee Good in the head.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.

Presidents have indeed invoked the Insurrection Act more than two dozen times, most recently in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to end unrest in Los Angeles. In that instance, local authorities had asked for the assistance.

The Associated Press has reached out to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. ICE is a DHS agency.

In Minneapolis, smoke filled the streets Wednesday night near the site of the latest shooting as federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd. Protesters responded by throwing rocks and shooting fireworks.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference that the gathering was an unlawful assembly and “people need to leave.”

Things later quietened down and by early Thursday only a few demonstrators and law enforcement officers remained at the scene.

Demonstrations have become common on the streets of Minneapolis since the ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Good on Jan. 7. Agents have yanked people from their cars and homes, and have been confronted by angry bystanders demanding that the officers pack up and leave.

“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” Frey, the mayor, said.

Frey said the federal force — five times the size of the city’s 600-officer police force — has “invaded” Minneapolis, scaring and angering residents.

In a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday's shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a driver from Venezuela who is in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.

After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.

The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.

O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

The shooting took place about 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers) north of where Good was killed. O’Hara's account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security.

During a speech before the latest shooting, Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what's happening in the state “defies belief.”

“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”

Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Good, suffered internal bleeding to his torso during the encounter, a Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.

The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Ross’ medical condition. The official did not provide details about the severity of the injuries, and the agency did not respond to questions about the extent of the bleeding, exactly how he suffered the injury, when it was diagnosed or his medical treatment.

Good was killed after three ICE officers surrounded her SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from her home.

Bystander video shows one officer ordering Good to open the door and grabbing the handle. As the vehicle begins to move forward, Ross, standing in front, raises his weapon and fires at least three shots at close range. He steps back as the SUV advances and turns.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Ross was struck by the vehicle and that Good was using her SUV as a weapon — a self-defense claim that has been criticized by Minnesota officials.

Chris Madel, an attorney for Ross, declined to comment.

Good’s family has hired the same law firm that represented George Floyd’s family in a $27 million settlement with Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died after a white police officer pinned his neck to the ground in the street in May 2020.

Madhani reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press reporters Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Julie Watson in San Diego; Rebecca Santana in Washington; Ed White in Detroit and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis contributed.

A protester yells in front of law enforcement after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Tear gas surrounds federal law enforcement officers as they leave a scene after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Protesters shout at law enforcement officers after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Law enforcement officers stand amid tear gas at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)