With faces painted as skulls and bodies made up like skeletons, throngs of performers marched through the streets of Mexico City on Saturday in a Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) parade in a country still mourning the nearly 500 people killed in back-to-back earthquakes last month.
Thousands of onlookers cheered and applauded as a giant raised fist constructed out of hard hats and pickaxes led the procession, signifying the resilient spirit of a country hit with one of its worst calamities in decades.
An 8.2-magnitude quake — the most powerful to hit Mexico in a century — struck off the Pacific Coast shortly before midnight on Sept. 7, setting off tsunami warnings, burying hundreds of people under collapsed buildings and scattering frightened residents into the streets.
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Then, on Sept. 19, a 7.1-magnitude quake struck about 400 miles from the epicenter of the first one, toppling buildings, cracking highways and killing more than 200 people in Mexico City, the capital.
“For us as a society, it was something very violent that moved our conscience,” Ramón Márquez, 51, wearing an orange T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “#fuerzamorelos” or “Be Strong Morelos,” said of one of the quakes, Reuters reported.
“The parade could be a distraction, a way of escaping,” he added.
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There were dancing devils. Towering skeletons. Altars festooned with marigolds. All paraded down Mexico City’s main thoroughfare to kick off the annual Day of the Dead festivities that run through Nov. 2 with rituals continuing in town plazas, homes and cemeteries leading up to All Saints’ Day.
More than 700 performers prepared for months for the colorful afternoon procession along more than four miles of the Paseo de la Reforma.
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They were joined by a group wearing fluorescent aid-worker vests who marched with fists in the air — a tribute to the rescuers who had made the gesture to demand silence as they listened for desperate survivors in the rubble from the second quake.
But the earthquakes did not diminish the centuries-old Mexican celebration. Participants and onlookers alike painted their faces as colorful skulls — many in the style of Mexico’s iconic figure known as La Catrina.
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Local news media reported that at least 300,000 people attended Saturday’s parade, up from 200,000 last year.
Historians trace the origins of the multiday fete back thousands of years to Mesoamerican festivals, when people believed that the dead returned temporarily to Earth.
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Day of the Dead is also meant as a celebration of life. Food, music and remembrance of relatives are interwoven in the festivities.
“We’re not only here to celebrate and dance, but also when there’s a disastrous situation we come together to help,” Violeta Canella Juárez, 31, said.
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