Tuesday, September 19th began as a typical trade show prep day in Mexico City. Tracey Frost, Dan Zmuda, David Bolding, Simon Romero, and Alonso Uribe were in attendance representing Nazdar SourceOne, setting up textile printing equipment for the company booth at FESPA Mexico. The show was scheduled to run September 21-23 and promised to be the largest event of its 10-year history. That morning, they had participated in a public earthquake exercise, similar to a fire drill. Mexico holds this drill each September 19th for both earthquake preparedness and as a memorial to its deadliest earthquake ever, an 8.1-magnitude quake on that date in 1985.
Just two hours after the drill, at 1:14pm, Mexico City was rocked by a 7.1 earthquake, shaking the Centro Citibanamex convention center. Having just done the drill, everyone knew to evacuate the building immediately. All attending Nazdar employees were safe, but many citizens in the area were not so lucky; the death toll currently stands at 344 with over $2 billion in damages. Due to the rescue operations and transportation difficulties, the decision was made to postpone FESPA Mexico.
By Thursday, September 21st, the Nazdar group, along with M&R's technical team, had completed packing equipment and booth furnishings. Traveling through the city, they saw amazing acts of humanity and kindness as citizens pitched in to help the rescue workers, including forming a human chain stretching three blocks to pass along food and supplies. Nazdar team members were able to join in the effort by supplying packs of bottled water, distributed at a makeshift stand to people affected by the tragedy.
Nazdar extends its sympathies to all people affected by the earthquake's devastation. To aid in disaster relief efforts for Mexico's earthquake and/or the recent Atlantic hurricanes, please consider donating to Direct Relief or other aid organizations.