By now you have all heard about the earthquake in Mexico, and along with the mounting death toll and damage estimates, the NXGEN family is thankful and can breathe a sigh of relief because all of the NXGEN Mexico employees and their immediate families are accounted for and safe. NXGEN's office building in Mexico City does not appear to have any structural damage, and electrical systems are functioning.
The building superintendent confirmed that the building can be occupied, but Guillermo Izguerra (NXGEN Mexico's GM) and Elena Carmona (Operations) are on their way to the office to determine if the phone system is working and if it makes sense to have additional inspections. Access to the street where the building is located is blocked because another building just around the corner collapsed during the earthquake and access streets are blocked with debris.
Our Prepaid Services server and host system were not affected by the earthquake and remain operational. Elavon Mexico will not return to their offices until their building passes inspection, so they have a skeleton staff is working from home today. Many businesses are closed today, and cell phone voice service is being offered at no charge by most carriers for the next few days.
Mexico City's metro system was closed yesterday (5 million daily users) which wreaked havoc on traffic as the millions of people looked for a way to get home. Drivers rolled down their windows and shouted the direction they were going in to the pedestrians in the street to offer a ride to anyone headed in that the direction.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City where 5,000 to 30,000 people died. Yesterday morning there were citywide drills where alarms sounded throughout the city, entire buildings were evacuated for a moment of silence to honor those who died in the '85 quake.
Today some damaged buildings are still collapsing. People are frantically working to remove debris because they want to hear if there are survivors in the rubble. Guillermo and several others from the NXGEN Mexico office will volunteer to remove debris at the building around the corner, or at the building in downtown Mexico where one of our attorneys works, at at this moment, has been reported missing.
On behalf of everyone in NXGEN Mexico, thank you for your concern and your prayers. We wanted to provide some insight into to what our colleagues in Mexico are going through.