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At least 94 people are dead in Mexico after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the country Tuesday afternoon.

According to Mexico City Mayor MiguelÁngel Mancera, at least 30 people were killed in the capital alone, the Associated Press reports. He added that at least 44 buildings collapsed and between 50 to 60 people have been pulled alive from debris. 

Morelos Gov. Graco Ramirez confirmed at least 42 fatalities after the tremor, which struck about 70 miles southeast of the national capital in Mexico City. The quake, which was 51 kilometers deep, hit near the small town of San Juan Raboso.

At least 11 others were reportedly killed in Puebla state, Interior Department spokesperson Francisco Sanchez told AP.

State of Mexico Gov. Alfredo del Maxo confirmed eight deaths Tuesday, including a quarry worker who was killed when the quake triggered a landslide and a person who was hit by a falling lamppost.  

Earlier in the day, buildings across Mexico's capital city had held preparation drills on the anniversary of an 8.0 quake in 1985. The 1985 quake caused serious damage to the Greater Mexico City area and the deaths of at least 5,000 people.

In the city's Roma neighborhood, which was struck hard by the 85 quake, small piles of stucco and brick fallen from building facades littered the streets, AP reports.

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Rescue crews in the neighborhood pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a toppled building. 

Talia Hernandez, 28, was on the second floor of an office building in the neighborhood that collapsed, the New York Times reports. When the earthquake hit and tore through the structure, she said she rolled down the stairs as they were collapsing. She managed to escape the building but broke her foot in the process.

"I can't believe I'm alive," she said, weeping and in schock. Medics were pulling shards of glass from her foot.

Gala Dluzhynska told the Associated Press she was taking a class with 11 other women on the second floor of a building in Roma when the structure crumbled.

"There weren't stairs anymore, only rocks," she said. 

Dluzhynska said the building's stairway was very tight and covered with glass as they made their escape. She added that the dust was so thick you couldn't see anything, and that she fell in the stairway. People began to walk over her and someone pulled her to her feet after she shouted for help. 

When they reached the bottom, an exit gate was locked and they screamed for help until a security guard came and unlocked the gate. She said they were still looking for one classmate who was missing.

In the southern neighborhood of Coyoacan, the walls of colonial-era buildings cracked and sagged, with some collapsing into rubble, the Washington Post reports.

"This is the worst one I have ever felt," shopkeeper Beatriz Aguilar Bustamante told the Post. "I don't know if I will have a house when I go home."

Across the city, traffic came to a standstill, as masses of workers blocked streets, and clouds of dust rose from fallen pieces of facades.

Adrian Wilson, a photographer from New York City, told CNN he was in the capital when the earthquake struck.

"I was having lunch when the floor gently rocked as if a big truck went by," Wilson said. "It then amplified in waves and the whole room started shaking. The building is from the 1930s and just survived a big earthquake, so I knew I would be OK."

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto activated the country's major disaster plan, according to NBC News, and called for the National Emergency Committee to assess the situation.

Activity for all levels of education in and Mexico City and nearby Puebla are suspended after the quake, public education secretary told NBC News.

Puebla Interior Secretary Diodoro Carrasco tweeted that the city has sustained material damage, but no deaths have been reported so far.

Carrasco said the towers of some churches have fallen in the neighboring city of Cholula, which is famous for its many houses of worship.

Mexico City International Airport suspended operations Tuesday due to the quake, according to AP. Airport personnel are checking structures for damage. 

According to the USGS quakes in this magnitude range can cause "considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse." The agency issued an orange alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses, which mean significant casualties and damage are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread.