PD Editorial: To growing list of places around world that need help, add Mexico City

“Now is the moment when solidarity begins.” So said a teary-eyed Jorge Ortiz Diaz, 66, one of thousands of workers who joined in the frantic effort to help those injured or trapped in the debris following a massive 7.1 earthquake in central Mexico Tuesday that left hundreds dead and thousands hurt.

The extent of the devastation is almost as hard to comprehend as the timing of this disaster itself, coming just 12 days after southern areas of Mexico were shaken by a magnitude 8.1 quake, the largest the country has experienced in a century. It also came as many of Mexico’s neighbors around the Gulf of Mexico and countries in the Caribbean were still reeling from other forces of nature - powerful hurricanes named Harvey, Irma and now Maria, which has devastated Puerto Rico and appears to be on course toward the South Atlantic states.

But Tuesday’s quake centered just 100 miles southeast of Mexico City came with a special kind of eerie timing. It rattled the nation on the very anniversary of a massive quake that killed as many as 10,000 people in Mexico on Sept. 19, 1985.

Many residents of Mexico in fact had taken part earlier in the day in earthquake drills that have become a fitting way of remembering the temblor from 32 years ago. Then, just two hours later, the real thing hit again - with a mighty force.

The effect was to leave many scrambling to help survivors and struggling for explanations. “It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah, like God is angry with us,” Diaz told the New York Times.

There may never be a clear explanation for the odd timing. But what can’t be ignored is the extent of the devastation and the need for financial assistance from the public.

Buildings crumbled. Housing complexes and schools collapsed on themselves while utility poles snapped and office buildings spilled concrete and glass like trees shedding leaves in gale-force winds.

What also can’t be ignored is the benefit of Mexico City’s early warning system, which gave thousands of residents and workers time to head for the streets before the shaking started. The system was installed in 1991 in hopes of preventing the kind of death toll that befell the nation in 1985. And it has worked. The system, which now includes more than 100 sensors along the Mexican Pacific coast, sounded an alarm that gave residents at least 20 seconds to move to safety. The many now-viral videos of people in the streets as buildings shake and, in some cases, collapse are testament to the success of the system. They also raise questions, once again, as to why the U.S. is not already wired with similar technology. But we will save that for another time.

For now, we simply ask readers to add Mexico to their growing list of places around the world in need of prayer and financial support. Now is the moment when solidarity begins - particularly for our friends and neighbors to the south.