Mexico quake death toll climbs to 343

A member of a City youth organisation cleans in front of a building that collapsed in the last week's 7.1 earthquake on Amsterdam and Laredo streets, at the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City. Picture: AP Photo/Marco Ugarte

Most of the capital's collapse sites have already been cleared of rubble.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday that preliminary accounting suggests damage from the magnitude 7.1 quake and an even more powerful one earlier in the month could cost upward of $2 billion (about R28 billion).