MEXICO (TWT): A powerful earthquake has struck central and western Mexico, killing at least 23 people on the Pacific coast.

The earthquake measured at least 7.6 on the Richter Scale and about half of the fatalities were in the city of Colima.

The city has a population of 125,000 people and is located about 310 miles west of Mexico City.

Emergency workers there struggled to treat around 100 people in Colima.

Red Cross volunteer Marta Requena said: "People are coming to give us medicine from their homes but it is not enough - we need more."

Most of the victims were crushed under fallen walls or in the rubble of homes, a senior Interior Ministry source said.

"There is damage to many buildings and we have at least 40 people injured in different hospitals," he said.

Dazed residents slept in the streets or sat out in the open air, terrified of going back into buildings

The Seismological Service at Mexico City's UNAM University said the quake struck at 8. Fernando Moreno, governor of the state of Colima, said dozens of people were injured as walls and homes collapsed.

"There is extensive damage to homes, mostly in the (state) capital, there are many houses damaged," he told Televisa television news.

Mexico City, where more than 10,000 people died in a 1985 quake, escaped with no more than power cuts, cracks to buildings and some gas leaks.

The city lives under constant threat of a repeat of that tragedy and many people ran crying from their buildings when the quake struck.

Residents and officials agreed the city had dodged a bullet, with only a few dozen people treated for shock.

Colima state is home to the active Volcano of Fire, which last errupted in 1998.