Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said there were no immediate reports of damage in the capital after the earthquake, which rumbled through Mexico on the same day that major quakes battered the country in 1985 and 2017.
“It’s this date, there’s something about the 19th,” said Ernesto Lanzetta, a business owner in the Cuauhtemoc borough of the city. “The 19th is a day to be feared.” The earthquake on September 19, 2017, killed more than 350 people, while the other on the same date in 1985 killed thousands. “It seems like a curse,” Isa Montes, a 34-year-old graphic designer, said of the quake’s timing as helicopters flew overhead, surveying the city. Al Jazeera’s John Holman, reporting from Mexico City, said many in Mexico viewed the timing of Monday’s quake as “really bizarre”. “It’s happened exactly on the anniversary – the 19th of September – as two other major earthquakes in Mexico,” Holman said. “Those last two earthquakes really wreaked havoc, especially here in the capital.” Many Mexicans reacted to the latest quake by posting an array of memes online venting their amazement. There was one of a bird reading a book titled “how to skip from September 18 to September 20,” while another, mimicking an announcement by the Mexican government, invites outsiders to “Visit Mexico” and “on every September 19, come live the experience of a real temblor”. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), one of the country’s most prestigious seats of higher learning, said there was no scientific explanation for three major quakes on the same day and attributed it to pure coincidence, according to Aljazeera.
