In the middle of the night, on July 28, 1957 I was awakened by a terrible swaying and a very loud bang. I was living in an high-rise apartment in Mexico City with my mother and grandmother. It was, we found out later, an earthquake at 7.9 on the Richter scale. There were about 79 deaths and not more probably because the temblor was centered around Acapulco.

The very loud bang we heard was the falling of the Angel of Independence on Paseo de La Reforma and Tiber. We lived nearby.

Homero Aridjis's Female Angels

Many of us in the city were surprised to find out that the angel in question was a female. She was quickly restored.