Six Quakes Jolt Mexico City, Damage Buildings, Injure 100

MEXICO CITY--Six strong earthquakes and after-shocks jolted southern Mexico yesterday afternoon, damaging buildings and injuring more than 100 people, Red Cross officials said yesterday.

Federal inspectors said the earthquakes twisted some buildings on their foundations, but destroyed none, and fire department officials said yesterday the earthquakes caused at least four fires. Television and radio stations warned of the dangers posed by fallen high power electrical wires.

The ground continued to roll sporadically into the early evening hours after the tremors stopped. The earthquake measured as high as 7.9 on the Richter scale.

Although all six quakes qualified as earthquakes, all but the first were "remnants of energy" from the first shifting in the earth's crust, Jaime Yamamoto, of the Tacubaya Seismological Station in Mexico City, said yesterday.