Fol­low­ing the mag­ni­tude 7.1 earth­quake on Tues­day the IARU mem­ber soci­ety, Fed­era­cion Mex­i­cana de Radio Exper­i­men­ta­dores or FMRE, had its Nation­al Emer­gency Net activated. 

This is on 7.060 MHz, 3.690 MHz and 14.120 MHz as well as IRLP reflec­tor 9200, chan­nel 08. The epi­cen­ter in the cen­tral Mex­i­co state of Puebla at 1814 UTC on Tues­day was south­east of Mex­i­co City, which felt it. 

Ear­ly reports had more than 120 peo­ple killed as the ‘quake top­pled build­ings and res­cuers are searched the rub­ble for survivors. 

FMRE Pres­i­dent Al Tomez XE2O reports the Nation­al Emer­gency Net has been han­dling traf­fic to make up for the loss of some mobile phone networks. 

He not­ed that the lat­est earth­quake was on the anniver­sary of the 1985 mag­ni­tude 8.0 earth­quake that struck the Mex­i­co City, killing some 9,500 people. 

Since then Mex­i­co has pre­pared for seis­mic events.  A week ago, a mag­ni­tude 8.1 earth­quake struck off Mexico’s south­ern coast. It killed more than 60 peo­ple and caused con­sid­er­able damage. 

– Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee