Bermuda Team Safe After Mexico Earthquake

The Bermuda National School Debate team were evacuated from a building today [Apr 18 ] when a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Mexico, and fortunately all the team is safe and well.

Ryan Robinson Perinchief, JaShonae Smith, Glenn Simmons and Asha Symons are in Mexico to represent Bermuda in the Panamerican Schools Debate Tournament in Mexico City.

The earthquake struck at around 11.30am Bermuda time, and was felt across at least a half-dozen states and Mexico’s capital, where it collapsed several walls and left larges cracks in some facades.

According to a Reuters report, some residents of the capital ran outdoors in their pajamas after the quake.

Electricity was cut off in parts of the city and some residents said paintings fell off the walls while small parts of masonry crumbled inside apartment buildings.

Robinson-Perinchief said, “When the earthquake hit we had been preparing for a debate and the team was separated at the time.

“The debates were taking place at Tecnológico de Monterrey and although emergency instructions given to us were in a Spanish, we managed to run out of the building as the glass, tables, and lights began to shake.

“We waited at the evacuation point [pictured] for 10 minutes to see if there was an aftershock but there was none. We were instructed to go back inside after the building was declared safe to enter and then during a new debate an aftershock tremor did hit and we had to evacuate again.”

The debate will continue, with teams from Bermuda, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico and the United States debating in both English and Spanish.

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