A big earthquake shook Mexico on a Friday night. People in areas close to the epicenter were scared and didn’t know what to do. A lot of individuals who lived in the affected area of Oaxaca didn’t go back home because the earthquake caused a lot of damage and there was a potential of aftershocks. A number of people, on the other hand, stayed in their automobiles or gathered in wide fields, where they felt safer under the open sky. Families, especially those with kids, had a long, restless night of agony, tiredness, and the constant fear that the ground would shake again.
But while the light was coming up and survivors were attempting to find out how to live their new lives, something even worse happened, this time from above instead of below.
A military helicopter with high-ranking officials on board had been sent to look at the damage the earthquake caused and show that the federal government was there to help. There were important persons on board, like Alejandro Murat, the governor of Oaxaca, and Alfonso Navarrete, the secretary of the interior for Mexico. As the Blackhawk chopper got closer to the landing zone near the community of Jamiltepec, which is only 20 miles from the quake’s epicenter, things went very wrong. The pilot lost control of the plane when it was just 100 feet in the air. The jet lost control and fell to the earth in a matter of seconds.
The plane hit the area where a lot of individuals who had survived the earthquake had parked their cars or set up their mattresses for the night. Those who had recently survived a natural disaster were hit by a man-made disaster. The state prosecutor’s office said that fourteen individuals died on the ground, three of them children. Twenty-one other people were hurt in other ways. Families who thought their damaged homes were too dangerous had inadvertently put themselves in the way of something even worse.
Everyone on the helicopter, including Navarrete and Governor Murat, survived, but they all were hurt. The difference was quite clear and painful. People who were supposed to help had cuts and bruises. People that wanted to be safe had to spend the most.
Later, Navarrete told a local reporter that the pilot had lost control right before landing. “It’s a shame this happened,” he told Televisa news on Friday night. He said that the damage was horrific, but it was good that there weren’t more deaths. This speech made a lot of people feel different things because the tragedy was so big.
The next day, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the Secretary of National Defense, went to Jamiltepec to see what had happened. He spoke in a serious and sad tone as he apologized sorry for the Mexican military. He said, “This tragedy happened because we wanted to help the community here,” which made it evident that his agency was completely responsible for what had transpired. Cienfuegos told survivors that the government will help them fix their homes and help families who had been damaged by natural or man-made disasters.
What started as an effort to aid and console a hurt community developed into two disasters: an earthquake and then a horrible disaster involving the people who had gone to help. It was much harder to deal with the loss in a location that was already in pain. The story makes it apparent that after a natural disaster, danger can come in many forms and that recovery is rarely as easy as it seems. The families of Jamiltepec will have a long road to recovery, full of grief, strength, and the deep wounds that a night that changed everything left behind.