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  • The Christian Science Monitor

    When buildings crumble, these rescue 'moles' tunnel in to survivors

    Oct 10, 2017 5 minutes
    Pola Moffit stands in front of an office building that collapsed in Mexico City's Roma neighborhood during the 7.1 earthquake on Sept. 19. She is part of a team of roughly 10 civilian rescuers, known as Topos, or Moles, who worked at this site for 15 days straight, digging into the rubble, crawling into the building ruins, and trying to rescue quake victims. Ms. Moffit got her start doing this volunteer rescue work on the same day in 1985, when an 8.0 quake rocked Mexico City, killing thousands.

    When Pola Díaz Moffitt walks into the wood-paneled seafood restaurant here on a recent afternoon, everyone on staff pauses to greet her.

    It’s not the typical reception someone gets when they’ve been popping into the same restaurant for a week, solely to use its bathroom, but this isn’t a typical moment in Mexico City.

    Ms. Moffitt, donning a white medical mask around her neck, black plastic elbow and knee pads over her clothes, and a walkie-talkie poking out from her shirt collar, has been working in volunteer search and rescue for eight days straight across the street at Álvaro Obregón 286. The seven-story office building crumbled to the ground on Sept. 19 amid a 7.1 earthquake, trapping scores of people. It’s one of nearly 40 buildings that flattened across the city, killing an estimated 228 people.

    Moffitt is a , or

    Into the rubbleTopos together

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