At least 10 people, including three children, were killed when the roof of a church collapsed in northern Mexico.
The collapse happened on
Sunday afternoon local time as around 100 people were attending a baptism at
Santa Cruz church in Ciudad Madero.
Sixty people were injured,
at least two of them seriously, and dozens were trapped underneath the rubble.
Local residents rushed to
the building with shovels and pickaxes to try to free those trapped.
Search and rescue teams
have since arrived at the scene and two cranes are on site to remove the
debris.
The governor of Tamaulipas
has said that all of those missing have been accounted for. Rescue workers used
thermal imaging cameras to ensure no one remained under the rubble.
It is not yet clear what
may have caused the collapse but the mayor of Ciudad Madero said it was
probably due to "structural failures".
Ángel Vargas, the priest
who was celebrating the baptisms when the collapse occurred said that a day of
celebration had turned into a tragedy.
"They came to search
for heaven for the little ones and found eternity. I want the families to find
peace. All of this is unfathomable."
Local journalist Franc
Contreras told the BBC World Service's Newsday program that the collapse
happened at a key moment in the service.
"People were lined up
to take the communion - of course, that's sort of the climax of the Catholic
Mass - and that's when the roof came down on top of them; bricks, concrete, and
of course steel support structures coming down on top of the people," he
said.
He added that according to
Red Cross officials, the roof came down on pews in the church, allowing the
possibility that anyone trapped there could survive in air pockets.
One of the survivors
described her ordeal on social media.
Josefina Ramírez said she
had been attending the baptism of her godchild when the roof came down.
"Thank God, I'm alive
(...) I feared I would not see my beautiful family again (...) I don't know how
we got out," she wrote.
Local media reported that
one of the people trapped had managed to send a WhatsApp message which helped
rescuers to find him.
Among those who died was
reportedly a toddler and a couple with their eight-year-old son, Mexican
newspaper Milenio reported.
The bishop of the diocese of Tampico, where the church is located, said he was praying for the victims.
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