MEXICO CITY — A magnitude 6.2 aftershock that shook Mexico on Saturday was blamed for five deaths, spreading fear among anxious residents reeling from a string of natural disasters and interrupting the search for survivors from a bigger tremor earlier this week.

The Popocatepetl volcano south of Mexico City sent a column of ash into the sky, capping an intense period of seismic activity including two powerful tremors this month that have killed more than 400 people and caused damage of up to $8 billion.

Although the latest quake was not as destructive, fear is running high among the population. Terrified residents ran into the streets, where they crouched and prayed as earthquake sirens went off. Two women died of heart attacks as the ground shook, the city government said.

The United States Geological Survey said the latest quake was relatively shallow with an epicenter near Juchitan, a tropical region of Oaxaca state hard hit by a massive 8.1 magnitude tremor that struck on Sept. 7.

Three people died in Oaxaca during Saturday’s tremor, including a man who was attacked by a swarm of wild bees, authorities said.

Mexico’s seismological authorities said it was an aftershock of the Sept. 7 tremor, which was the strongest to hit the country in 85 years and killed at least 98 people.

The Popocatepetl volcano, which is visible on a clear day to the approximately 20 million people who live in the Mexico City metropolitan region, spewed vapor and ash-filled gas after two small eruptions on Saturday.

Meanwhile, emergency workers searched by floodlight in smashed buildings for survivors of Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in 32 years amid fading rescue prospects, five nights after the disaster and as President Enrique Pena Nieto urged Mexicans to turn their attention to rebuilding.

The search continued in a ruined office building in Mexico City’s hip Roma neighborhood and a five-story apartment in historic Tlalpan after Tuesday’s 7.1 quake toppled dozens of buildings and killed over 300 people.

The temblor, Mexico’s worst since a 1985 quake killed thousands, may have left some 30,000 badly damaged homes in the adjacent states of Morelos and Puebla and economic losses of $4 billion to $8 billion.

But authorities called off efforts in the upper-middle class Linda Vista zone, after pulling ten bodies from the rubble, while work at the Tlalpan-based apartment building was briefly halted on Saturday due to a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that shook southern Mexico and spread fear in the capital.

“In Tlalpan, there is still a possibility of finding people alive. It’s URGENT,” read a meme passed around Saturday on social networks.

Frustration has grown among the thousands left homeless by Tuesday’s quake with critics saying the government reaction pales in comparison to an outpouring of volunteer support, from rescue work to food donations.

When Tuesday’s quake hit, Mexico was already reeling from a Sept. 7 earthquake that killed at least 98 people and was the strongest in the country in 85 years.

President Enrique Pena Nieto sought to hit back against the criticism, highlighting government aid for survivors on a tour on Saturday of Jiquipilas in the poor Southern state of Chiapas, which was badly hit by the Sept. 7 quake.

“Be assured that the federal government is here, the state and local governments, supporting you, hand in hand, to rebuild,” he said. — Reuters