A big earthquake struck Mexico on a Friday night. People who lived 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 so much damage and there was a potential of aftershocks. A lot of individuals, on the other hand, went to open fields or stayed in their cars, where they felt safer under the open sky. Families, especially those with kids, had a long, restless night full of agony, tiredness, and the constant worry that the ground will shake again.
But just as the sun was coming up and survivors were attempting to figure 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 see the damage caused by the earthquake and show that the federal government was there to help. There were key officials on board, such Alejandro Murat, the governor of Oaxaca, and Alfonso Navarrete, Mexico’s Interior Secretary. 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 still around 100 feet in the air. It took only a few seconds for the airplane to lose control and crash to the ground.
The jet crashed right into the place where a lot of individuals who lived through the earthquake had parked their cars or set up their mattresses for the night. People who had just 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 whom were 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, lived, but they were all hurt. It was really clear and hurtful how different they were. The people who were supposed to help had cuts and bruises. People who sought safety had to spend the most.
Later, Navarrete told a reporter in the neighborhood that the pilot had lost control right before landing. He told Televisa news on Friday night, “It’s too bad this happened.” He said that the destruction was awful, but at least 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, traveled to Jamiltepec to look into what had happened. He spoke in a serious and regretful tone when he apologized for the Mexican military. He said, “This tragedy happened because we wanted to help the community here,” which made it plain that his agency was completely to fault for what had transpired. Cienfuegos told survivors that the government will help them fix their houses and 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 tragedies: an earthquake and then a horrible disaster that affected the individuals who had gone to help. It was much harder to deal with the loss in a place that was already hurting. The story makes it obvious that after a natural disaster, danger can come in many forms, and getting better is rarely as easy as it seems. The families of Jamiltepec will have a long road to recovery, full of grief, strength, and the profound wounds of a night that changed everything.
