DHAKA: The death toll in the massive earthquake in Mexico rose to at least 295, reports NBC News quoting the country’s national civil defense coordinator.

Rescuers are continuing actions to look for those trapped in the rubble.

Mexico’s national civil defense coordinator Luis Felipe Puente said Friday (September 22) on Twitter that more than half of those killed, 157 people, died in Mexico City.

Several people were found alive on Thursday (September 21), the Associated Press reported. In Mexico City's Colonia Obrera neighborhood, cheers erupted from more than 1,000 volunteers and officials after they pulled a survivor from the rubble of a textile factory Thursday. But the work to find survivors quickly resumed.

Mexico's Navy said Friday that 115 people have been found alive by rescuers in Mexico City. 

However, 1,300 of its marines have been deployed to help, and volunteers, aid workers and officials have traveled from all over the world to Mexico to help with the recovery effort.

The magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck at around 2:15 pm ET and the epicenter was in the state of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City, the US Geological Survey said. It occurred on the anniversary of the country’s deadliest earthquake that struck in 1985 and killed 9,500 people.

"The search and rescue actions will continue until they have exhausted all the possibilities," the Navy-Secretariat of Mexico said in a statement Friday.

BDST: 0956 HRS, SEP 23, 2017
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