MEXICO'S GIGANTIC TASK: REBUILDING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP98-01394R000200030034-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2013
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: October 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/25: CIA-RD
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MITTERRAND ENDS SOUTH AMERICAN TOUR:
President Francois Mitterrand, left, sipping rum punch
from a coconut yesterday as President Belisario Betan-
cur of Colombia, right, and Foreign Minister Ramirez
By WILLIAM STOCK1'014
spedai' to ne New York Times ? .
MEXICO CITY, 'Oct 20 At the
? busy corner of Insurgentes Avenue and
Monterrey Street in the heart of Mex-
ico City, a work crew labored Friday to
? create a park on a site where just a few
days before a pile of earthquake rubble
stood, the remains of a four-story furni-
ture store and warehouse.
The workmen smoothed topsoil that
had been trucked in, laid out strips Of
'. sod and planted shrubs and young
trees, creating an oasis of green amid
;.? the office buildings and stores and traf-
fic.. .,' ? . . .
Four blocks to the south on Insur??
gentes, the hulk of what was once a 10-
story office building sits abandoned. Its
top three floors collapsed, partly slid-
ing onto the smaller building peat door
and causing it, too, to collapse.. -
?- Ropes with bits of colored cloth have
. been strung along the sidewalk to warn
'pedestrians not to venture too close..
BM otherwise the building remains un-
touched since two earthquakes struck
Mexico City on Sept. 19 and 20. ,
$1911/ and Costly Process
The park ' and the derelict office
building are typical of Mexico City a
mouth after the earthquakes.
Mexico's President, Miguel de la Ma-
drid, has told the 'city's residents in
teleWstott addresses and public appear-
ances that Mexico City is on its feet and
' moving forward.. Government officials
, have promised to turn the sites of many
destroyeti buildings into parks. The
, park thaf took shape Friday is a sym-
bol of the Government's eagerness to
move forward with the reconstruction
' of the cater of the city, where the
earthquake damage was concentrated.
' But I-, broken office building and
dozens of others like it where workmen
with their cranes and dump trucks
have yet to begin the dangerous work of
..demolition reveal how difficult, costly
and slow, the process of demolition and
reconstruction will be. _
Death Toll Estimates Vary. ?
For one thing, bodies are still being
pulled from the rubble. And the Gov-
ernment said last week that it is hous-
ing and feeding morethan 33,000 home-
less people in Shelters. There are hull-
?:cations that thousands more - not In-
eluded in the official count are living In
the streets in makeshift tents and shan-
tytown houses of plastic and plywood or
? private shelters and being cared for
vonnulears:_f
of --bend
:???
whose homes were destroyed or so
'badly damaged that they, are Unin-
habitable have. moved in with friends
or relatives. ?
The number of homeless most often
cited, and the number Used by -the
United States Embassy, is 50,000. Same
Erhave used much higher:bum-
Eatimates of the death. tell vary
widely.
A spokesman in the Office of Mexico
City's Mayor said last week that 1,970
people killed in the earthquake had
been identified 'ad that 359 ether
bodies. remithied to be identified. For
several weeks Government agencies
have put the death toll at 4,600. The
United States Embassy 'puts the num-
ber at 7,000. Other grows use larger
Water Supplies Cut Off.
. . .
Water supplies have been cut off to
thousands of people in the earthqUake
zones, including many people whose
homes were undamaged. "A common
sight each day are lines of children and
women with buckets, awaiting their
turn at the hose iron]. a tank truck or
dipping water from an undergnamd
cistern. .
Government officials said that 3,124
buildings Were damaged in the earth-
quakes, including 412 that. allapped.
Some 595 more are coils-Meted beyOnd
repair.
Particularly hard hit were Govern-
ment buildings, some of which col-
lapsed. Many others are still standing,
but will, have to be demolished.
As a result, Many sectors-of the Mex-
ican bureaucracy are in disarray.
The Mexico City courts, for example,
were badly damaged and some courts
are still not functioning.
. Two civil court high-rise buildings
did not collapse, but they cannot be oc-
cupied. Workers were busy Thursday
removing office furniture and files and
loading them onto trucks to be moved
to temporary quartere across the d0'.
At another seriously damaged office
complex where many court offices
were located workers have punched
? holes in the walls of each floor of the 21-
'story buildiega'aetterealm; cranes to
retrieve furniture and -
On Thortda*,.?,11?ittlitaTigi.$14.32.th
floor was' shoveling,debris frni*.the
epee Side of the bundle-tin the tread.
The debris lncIUdedbOxE5 and boxes of
documenta;their '14,14file.
,
of the court's important files had been
salvaged.
Search for Files
-The beilding-thet-housettbelfficg9f.
theMexica.City Attorney General; who
Stroyed.Therwpe
of criminal cased tha be
prosecuted-hecause-oLioStIlles. '
-But-a-spokesman-for-the-Attorney
General said 90-percent otthatiles had
been retrievecland_thestalLcOntinued
to search in the ruirtalor_wre.. ", ,
-"A-case.M.-zertfiailar interest to the
United *States GovestinialW-of
Cattero.-Who-laaccusedia:the
death laiit Winter: of a-United , States
DruglErtiW*1WALenceggist_gad
his _pilot,,AR, etnIxiMy=tatattneild
kineri?canjeg_cials act reasmed
foi:14-acan authorities Aiat_j. thO
docatents-involoed-WAm. case: Were
1.1?:T? ,T-SIT.T.-wr;r? ?? I
The 21-floor building basing ths For-
eign Ministry was damaged. .badij
enough that engineer" Suggested: the
ministry's workers evaamte it Until re-.
pairs can be made. Workezt a.re
porary quarters all 'around the. city.
The Foreign Minister, Bernardo Se-
pidveda, and his immediate itaff will
move in the next few days to a ballram
In the 'fashionable Polanco 'section of
thecity ''-
? Vigil at Hospital Cantinas* .."
'In a city in which many tragic Scenes
have been witnessed in the last month,
one of the saddest continues each day
outside Juarez Hospital, where a wing
collasped, trapping perhaps more than
800 people inside.
It was here that nearly four dozen
babies were extricated alive from the
ruins, some as long as a week after the
earthquakes. But that miracle has been
muted by the sad vigil that family
members of those still Inside maintain
at the hospital ware, as of Thursday,
445 bodies, including those of 50 doe-
tom, had been found.
A ? month later, those 'whine "laved
ones have still not been found or idea&
fled Cluster outside the emergency
room, entrance, awaiting news. Inske.
doctors try to identify the now badly de.
eliminated. ?
"When we hive ;4041
of our hands we are, not
.that it be den1ed'usby
sive by the Pentagon'
Mr. Ortega said in a
hattan. "The state .or,??
been declared fundenient#
bat the possibility.of thi
ma an internal_froet.1--Aei
remarks tfaniCei
change of thoiME
the past has.
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stens has publicly Preidi
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States wain
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.1dr; 'Ortega'
of a state of emergenCY stin
an attempt to use -formal if
anisms to smash any attemp
1st activity" by what be
"desperate" coalition
thisers and Ameriten
agencieL. ,
Mr. Ort ete said he
pennon of civil rigida
rogue's lassos
lds Government
otherwise_
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Monday
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Declassified and and Approved For Release 2013/07/25 : CIA-RDP98-01394R000200030034:8