Mexico earthquake: Girl who captivated the nation never existed

Frida Sofia, a young girl believed to be trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school, stole the heart of a nation shocked by a deadly earthquake on Tuesday. But it seems Frida Sofia never existed.

As rescue workers raced to free people from the ruins of Enrique Rébsamen school, Mexicans fixated on the fate of the child."Frida Sophia" had apparently said, "I'm thirsty, I'm okay. Please don't take too long", Mexican newspaper El Universal reported on 21 September.
But on Thursday night the navy confirmed the story of Frida was false and apologised for conflicting reports.Frida Sofia was believed to be one of numerous children and adults trapped for more than 32 hours.For two days journalists gathered at the scene and social media users shared memes and emotional messages of support in more than 350,000 tweets."Little Frida Sofia has survived 32 hours trapped under the rubble, fighting for her life. A real fighter, soon she will be out of it," wrote Mexican YouTuber Ryan Hoffman, in a tweet shared more than 5,000 times.Rumours seemed to be confirmed by Navy Admiral Jose Vergara Larra who told media that after four hours of rescue operations they had detected a girl who was alive.

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Reports that no-one had come forward as parents of the child sparked some scepticism and the school itself said on Thursday morning they had no student registered under that name.
The story of Frida Sofia was "not a reality", Angel Enrique Sarmiento, the under-secretary of the navy, reported on Thursday afternoon.There were no signs that a child was alive in the ruins of the school and government authorities said they had never known about a child called Frida Sofia, he claimed.However, on Thursday night Mr Sarmiento contradicted his earlier statement, confirming that the navy had distributed reports of a surviving girl."I offer an apology to Mexicans for the information given this afternoon in which I said that the navy did not have any details about a supposed minor survivor in this tragedy," Mr Sarmiento told reporters at a news conference.
The body of a female teacher was found on Thursday night.
Spanish newspaper El País attributed the case of the "girl that wasn't" to a lie or a collective psychosis, suggesting it mirrors the story of Monchito, a child invented in the 1985 earthquake in Mexico that killed at least 10,000 people.A column in Mexican news magazine Proceso criticised the media for creating a "reality show" out of the disaster and fuelling rumours of a girl that turned out to be made up.On Friday officials said the death toll from the earthquake on Tuesday has risen to 273.

Who are Los Topos, Mexico's volunteer rescuers?

They were formed spontaneously in response to a huge earthquake in 1985. Since then, the Mexican volunteer rescuers known as the Topos - Moles - have helped in earthquakes from Iran to Nepal. Now, they are needed back at home.

The devastating 1985 earthquake struck on 19 September, the very same day as the one this year. It flattened 30,000 buildings in Mexico City and killed an estimated 10,000 people.
The Topos volunteers began to lift rubble, look for signs of life and pull people out, assisting the stretched and overwhelmed emergency services.
The next year, there was an earthquake in El Salvador and some of Los Topos headed south to help the neighbouring country in need.
They have since earned a reputation worldwide, and have assisted after earthquakes in Japan (1995), Colombia (1999), Haiti (2010) and Nepal (2015), among others, and in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami.
They travel with small tools - pickaxes and saws, for instance - and operate as a charity without state or private links.Now their skills are in need at home again. Although many people have come together to assist with the earthquake rescue, this group are different; they have specialized knowledge, as they keep up training throughout the year in the earthquake-prone country.

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They come from many professions but are still an unpaid force, and they work closely with firefighters and paramedics. They receive regular training in first aid, moving through and around collapsed buildings, climbing, managing search and rescue dogs, and fighting fires.
Their signal is well known in Mexico: Arms in the air, balled fists.
It means: Be quiet. We think we hear someone.
Asking for silence like that dates back to the earthquake in 1985. One of the rescuers later told the BBC (in Spanish): "I remember that the volunteers formed human chains and I watched with curiosity how they asked for silence to try to listen to the people who had been trapped.
"The government was overwhelmed," the rescuer, Eduardo Acevedo, continued."We had to organise ourselves."When people saw that this small group was taking people out of the rubble, they started calling us moles."We were the only ones who were ready to act in situations of risk."
On the Los Topos website (in Spanish) they say: "To be a Topo, all you need is to want to help people, be tenacious and brave, and have the disposition to want to protect and help."