"We want to emphasize that we have no knowledge about the report that emerged with the name of a girl," navy Assistant Secretary Angel Enrique Sarmiento said Thursday. "We never had any knowledge about that report, and we do not believe — we are sure — it was not a reality."
Was her name Siri?
12 Monkeys.
By early Thursday morning—hours before news that Frida Sofia isn’t real broke—speculation of deception was already high, and among the top trending topics in Mexico were “Monchito” and “Timmy O’Toole.”The first is a reference to a weeklong search—and media event—for the so-called “ghost boy” of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people exactly 32 years before this Tuesday’s quake. Like Frida Sofia, massive manpower went into the search for a boy whose body was never found and who may in fact never have existed.
Maybe they were hearing an angel?
We have to understand what really happened here. This is a common thing in disasters. It’s a kind of hysteria that takes over rescue workers and onlookers. They are so desperate to save people that they create a victim that they will save as a symbol.
The people and rescuers focus on this victim, real or imagined. It’s an emotional response to the entire tragedy, death and loss all around them which makes them feel so helpless.
If they can save this one person, everyone feels like a victory has been won over the earthquake, the storm, etc. The single victim, hopefully rescued, symbolizes the survival of everyone else and they can move on.
It’s very sad, and they shouldn’t be dissed for falling into the trap. It’s not done on purpose, and they can’t help it. It’s a coping mechanism and beyond their control.
God bless them all.
If she didn’t exist, then who were they giving drinking water too?
Fake news at its very best, designed to tug people’s attention and heart strings in that direction.
Prosecute.
I saw that on television, and I thought "that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense." Presumably they had some evidence of a girl trapped in the rubble because, I dunno, maybe someone in the rubble was screaming or yelling?
To state the girl doesn't exist on the basis of accounting for all the students that were in the school is ludicrous.
Perhaps the "accounting" is mistaken, or perhaps she was a visitor. The point is, if you have evidence of someone trapped in the rubble, it does not make any difference that said person is not on an official tally somewhere.
This story is weird.
The Mexicans may have gotten the idea from this film.
Ace in the Hole starring Kirk Douglas as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_in_the_Hole_(1951_film)
Charles Tatum, a down-on-his-luck reporter, takes a job with a small New Mexico newspaper. The job is pretty boring until he finds a man trapped in an old Indian dwelling. He jumps at the chance to make a name for himself by taking over and prolonging the rescue effort, and feeding stories to major newspapers. He creates a national media sensation and milks it for all it is worth - until things go terribly wrong
Countless Mexicans under rubble and they have to make one up??