After earning fame burrowing into piles of rubble in disasters the world over, including the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, Mexico's "mole" rescue workers are on tragically familiar ground, pulling people from ruins in their home city.
The moles — "topos" in Spanish — formed as a volunteer search and rescue group in the aftermath of the devastating quake that struck Mexico City in 1985, saving lives in the working-class neighborhood of Tlatelolco where there had been a poor government response.
They became known as fearless workers, putting their lives at risk to help others and traveling to disasters as far afield as Haiti, Nepal and the Philippines.
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