Mexican Govt grabs land in capital

Press, 14 October 1985, Page 6

Mexican Govt grabs land in capital

NZPA-Reuter Mexico City The Mexican Government has ordered the take-over of 7000 plots of private property in parts of the capital damaged by last month’s earthquakes that killed about 7000 people. The order affecting 250 ha of land in four city centres, mainly working-class dis-, tricts, was announced in the Government Gazette.

Mexico City’s Mayor, Mr Ramon Aguirre, said that the takeover would benefit some 180,000 victims of the twin earthquakes that hit the city on September 20 and 21.

The decree said that owners of the affected real estate would be compensated over 10 years by the city government. It did not say how the land would be valued for compensation.

Plots would be used to build or repair 7000 buildings, to be sold on easy terms giving preference to their present occupants, the decree said. The expropriation was apparently aimed at easing unrest over plans to relocate families from affected areas. © The opera singer, Placido Domingo, who lost four relatives in the earthquakes, has announced plans to cancel all scheduled appearances for the next year to raise funds for survivors. The Spanish-born tenor, who migrated to Mexico as a child, said that he hoped to raise more than ?USB million ($l4 million) through concerts in large arenas to help rehouse some 200 fami-

lies who lived in a block that collapsed in the ’quake, killing his uncle’s family. • Rescue teams have admitted that they may have been mistaken in thinking they heard signs of life from Luis Ramon Nafarrate, the boy who was believed to have survived two weeks under the rubble of his parents’ home. There was no sign of his body on Saturday when rescue teams finally came upon the site where the child was expected to be lying, next to the burnt body of his grandfather, which was pulled out of the wreckage on Wednesday.

“All ‘the sound tests were positive,” said a bewildered and disappointed member of the “moles” who risked their lives by tunnelling into the ruins.

“Perhaps the sounds we recorded were only echoes from a buried tank in the same area,” he theorised. One of the many questions now being askeo is: Was Luis in the building when it collapsed? . His parents have said that they had gone out to do some early-morning shopping, just before the ’quake struck central Mexico City. But the fact that the bo/s body was not found next to the grandfather’s — even though they were sleeping in the same room — has given birth to the suggestion that Luis might have gone outside just before the ’quake, and got lost. He had moved to the Mexican capital only a few days before the disaster.