JUCHITÁN DE ZARAGOZA, Mexico (AFP) — Police, soldiers and emergency workers raced Friday to rescue survivors from the ruins of Mexico’s most powerful earthquake in a century, which killed at least 59 people.

In the southern region hit hardest by the quake, emergency workers looked for survivors — or bodies — in the rubble of houses, churches and schools that were split down the middle, spilling their innards onto the ground.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said 46 people were killed in Oaxaca, 10 in Chiapas and three in Tabasco.

But the death toll could be over 80, according to higher figures reported by state officials.

The hardest-hit city was Juchitan, Oaxaca, where at least 17 bodies were pulled from the ruins and where the total death toll was probably “between 30 and 40 people,” according to Governor Alejandro Murat.

The city’s eerily quiet streets were a maze of ruins, with roofs, cables, insulation and concrete chunks scattered everywhere.

A crowd had formed at Juchitan’s partially collapsed town hall, a Spanish colonial building where two policemen were trapped in the rubble.

Rescuers managed to extract one and were still working to save the other 18 hours after the quake.

“God, let him come out alive!” said a woman watching as four cranes and a fleet of trucks removed what remained of the building’s crumbled wing.

His blue uniform covered in dust, Vidal Vera, 29, was one of around 300 police officers digging through the rubble. He hadn’t slept in more than 36 hours.

“I can’t remember an earthquake this terrible,” he told AFP.

“The whole city is a disaster zone right now. Lots of damages. Lots of deaths. I don’t know how you can make sense of it. It’s hard. My sister-in-law’s husband died. His house fell on top of him.”

A local hotel mostly collapsed and many homes were badly damaged in the predominantly indigenous town of 100,000 people, which is tucked into the lush green southern mountains near the coast.

The governor said tens of thousands of rations, blankets and cleaning kits were arriving, along with 100 federal police reinforcements with rescue dogs to search for people in the wreckage. “The priority in Juchitan is to restore water and food supplies and provide medical attention to those affected,” Pena Nieto tweeted after touring the devastated town.

The president described the 8.2-magnitude quake as “the largest registered in our country in at least the past 100 years” — stronger even than a devastating 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City.

In Tabasco, two children were among the dead. One was crushed by a collapsing wall. Another, an infant on a respirator, died after the quake triggered a power outage.

Pope Francis, at an open air mass on a visit to Colombia, said he was praying “for those who have lost their lives and their families” in the quake.

More than 200 people were injured across Mexico, officials said.

Four people were also injured in neighbouring Guatemala, where President Jimmy Morales flew over affected areas and ordered urgent humanitarian assistance.

The quake epicentre was in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) off the town of Tonala, in Chiapas. It hit at 11:49 pm Thursday (0449 GMT Friday), Mexico’s seismologic service said.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude slightly lower, at 8.1 — the same as in 1985, the quake-prone country’s most destructive ever.

The quake was felt as far north as Mexico City — some 800 kilometres from the epicentre — where people fled their homes, many in their pajamas, after hearing sirens go off.

Officials initially issued a tsunami alert, but later lifted it. However, the quake provoked large waves that reached as far as New Zealand, more than 11,000 kilometres away, authorities there said.

The quake struck as Mexicans were also bracing for Hurricane Katia, which strengthened to a Category Two storm as it rumbled toward the state of Veracruz on the Gulf coast.

It is one of three active hurricanes currently in the Atlantic Ocean alongside Irma and Jose.

Mexico sits atop five tectonic plates, making it prone to earthquakes, and has two long coastlines that are frequently battered by hurricanes.