Mexico

LA County Rescue Team Will Help With Earthquake Rescue Effort in Mexico City

A Los Angeles County emergency response team will be deployed to Mexico in the wake of the disastrous magnitude-7.1 earthquake that hit Mexico City Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Known internationally as USA-2, the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Urban Search and Rescue Team will deploy as part of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART).

The elite resuce team is comprised of a series of specially-trained firefighters, paramedics rescue specialists, search dogs and handlers, emergency room physicians, structural engineers and others. They'll bring about 55,000 pounds of search-and-rescue tools and medical equipment. 

Details on what time the team will be deployed were not immediately available.

The deployment marks the latest contribution to disaster relief efforts by a Southern California agency during an active September. Earlier this week, a 70-member team of Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters returned from a 24-day deployment to Texas and Florida, where they assisted in rescues and recovery following Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

In Mexico, the head of the country's civil defense agency said Wednesday that more than 200 people were killed in the quake, which occurred on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 Mexico city earthquake that killed thousands. Police, firefighters and residents are digging frantically through the rubble of collapsed schools, homes and apartment buildings, looking for survivors of Mexico's deadliest earthquake in decades.

Among the dead, at least 20 students and teachers who were in a collapsed school. 

The rescue effort has drawn support from around the world. The Israeli military says it's sending a 70-member delegation to Mexico that will primarily provide engineering assistance.

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