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Mexico quake death toll 344 as most collapse sites cleared

September 28, 2017 GMT

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Flowers ara placed next to the garage, the only structure that remains of a building collapsed in last week's 7.1 earthquake at the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. Across Mexico City, some 40 buildings collapsed in the earthquake and hundreds of others were so severely damaged they will either have to be demolished or receive major structural reinforcement, according to Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The death toll from Mexico’s Sept. 19 earthquake increased to 344 on Thursday, with 205 of the deaths counted in the nation’s capital.

National Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente announced the new figure via Twitter as recovery teams pulled some of the few remaining bodies out of collapsed buildings in Mexico City.

Most of the capital’s collapse sites have already been cleared of rubble.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday that preliminary accounting suggests damage from the magnitude 7.1 quake in central Mexico and an even more powerful one earlier in the month in southern Mexico could cost upward of $2 billion (38.1 billion pesos).