November 8, 2012 – Death Toll Rises to 48 in Guatemala 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake: A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Guatemala on Wednesday, killing at least 48 people, injuring about 150 and leaving 23 unaccounted for, government officials said. They warned that the official toll was preliminary and could rise. Picture above, a home in San Marcos was damaged after a 7.4 earthquake struck Guatemala on Wednesday.
“This is the largest earthquake we have had since the one in 1976,” President Otto Pérez Molina said at a news conference, recalling the temblor that killed about 23,000 people.
The earthquake on Wednesday, centered off the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, struck at 10:35 a.m., leveling houses and damaging government buildings, schools and roads.
“It was too strong,” said Yesenia Miranda, 30, a pastor at a church in the department of San Marcos, the area hardest hit. “We’ve never lived through anything like this.”
During the earthquake, the church’s walls cracked and its windows broke, said Ms. Miranda, who is helping operate a relief center out of the rooms that were not damaged. The city’s hospital, she said, had extensive damage and was operating at less than capacity.
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