Pena Nieto Faced an Earthquake of His Own When He Asked Citizens for Disaster Assistance David Agren - The Washington Post
go to original September 30, 2017

Mexico City residents struggle to return to pre-quake life (Reuters/Times of Oman)

Related: Shoddy Construction, Corruption Made Mexico Quake Worse; Toll Rises to 350 (The Kashmir Monitor)

The late-night tweet from the Mexican president’s office went out as an ordinary appeal for assistance in a time of crisis.

“Mexico still needs you,” read the Wednesday night tweet. “Help with tents, tarps and blankets for families displaced by the #earthquakes. #FuerzaMéxico.”

But the appeal fell flat. It also hit a sore spot for many Mexicans, who hold their politicians and elites in low esteem and were already seething over a series of corruption scandals consuming the country in the months preceding the twin earthquakes striking in September.

Mexicans on social media raged against the tweet, along with their perceptions of opulence, insensitivity and corruption in politics and public service.

“Urgently needed, cans of honesty and sacks of dignity for the collection center in Los Pinos” — the president’s office. “Don’t bring anymore cynicism or shamelessness. There’s already an excess,” tweeted Gerardo Esquivel, an economist at the Colegio de México.

“This is a government lacking credibility, lacking legitimacy with a very bad image due to scandals and all this fuels the negative reaction,” he told The Washington Post.

The magnitude-7.1 earthquake that rocked central Mexico on Sept. 19 and magnitude-8.1 earthquake hitting the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca 12 days earlier have claimed more than 400 lives and damaged more than 155,000 buildings.

As Mexicans remove the rubble and mourn the dead, many are asking tough questions about corruption — both the cases of alleged graft in the construction of buildings collapsing in the quakes and the politicians now pleading with the country to help out in a time of crisis.

... The furor comes at a time when many Mexicans, acting on their own, have already given generously, organized relief efforts and pitched in to remove rubble and rescue those buried under collapsed buildings.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

Related: Suffering Quake Survivors Turn on Mexico’s Government (The Daily Beast)

Related: In Both the US and Mexico, Citizens Led Better Disaster Response Than Their Governments (Quartz)

Related: Signs of Corruption Emerge from Rubble of Mexico Quake (Agence France-Presse)

Related: This Group of Women Have Banded Together to Search for People Trapped in Mexico Earthquake Destruction (BritandCo)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!