A volunteer caries wood pieces to strengthen a damaged building by the last week's 7.1 earthquake, in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. Search teams are still digging through dangerous piles of rubble at sites around the city, hoping against the odds to find survivors after the Sept. 19 quake. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Republished September 28, 2017 - 1:59 PM
Original Publication Date September 28, 2017 - 9:11 AM
MEXICO CITY - The death toll from Mexico's Sept. 19 earthquake increased to 344 on Thursday, with 205 of the deaths counted in the nation's capital.
National Civil Defence chief Luis Felipe Puente announced the new figure via Twitter as recovery teams pulled some of the few remaining bodies out of collapsed buildings in Mexico City.
Most of the capital's collapse sites have already been cleared of rubble.
President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday that preliminary accounting suggests damage from the magnitude 7.1 quake in central Mexico and an even more powerful one earlier in the month in southern Mexico could cost upward of $2 billion (38.1 billion pesos).
News from © The Associated Press, 2017