Mexico City, Mexico — Former Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, who led Mexico from 1982 to 1988 through economic crisis and a devasting earthquakes, died Sunday at the age 77, according to sources.

President Felipe Calderón called De la Madrid "a Mexican with a profound commitment to the country" in a statement confirming his death Sunday. Calderon said he is "deeply sorry for the death of ex-President De la Madrid."

The cause of death was not immediately announced, but the former president had been hospitalized in Mexico City with respiratory problems since Dec. 17th. Several false rumors about De la Madrid's death surfaced last December.

Manuel Bartlett, who was interior secretary during De la Madrid's administration, told Mexican broadcaster Televisa that the former president served "during one of the most difficult periods in the history of Mexico, a real collapse of the national economy."

During his presidency, De la Madrid pulled Mexico back from economic collapse after a spending binge by a previous government that was convinced soaring oil prices would never fall. When they did, the buying power of Mexican salaries was slashed in half as inflation chewed up paychecks.

The initial economic panic in his administration was so deep that many thought De la Madrid did well just by not making things worse. As he put it just before leaving office, "I took a country with great problems and leave it with problems."

"The presidency of Miguel de la Madrid was very difficult," former President Carlos Salinas told reporters at his wake Sunday. "What Mexico has changed for good in the past 25 years, started with De la Madrid."

De la Madrid launched a historic free-market transformation of Mexico's economy. He sold off about 750 of the 1,155 companies the government owned when he took office, to private enterprise. He also signed international free-trade treaties that paved the way for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and helped Mexico develop into a global industrial power, although one overwhelmingly dependent on the United States.

But De la Madrid's lack of political experience sometimes cost him dearly.

In 1985, when earthquakes devastated Mexico City and an estimated 9,000 people were killed; and a government gas facility exploded killing more than 500 additional people on the outskirts of the capitol, the De la Madrid led government was slow to react.

Residents ignored the government appeals to stay in their homes and instead formed impromptu rescue brigades that rushed to collapsed buildings to save lives, with little official help. De la Madrid's scarce public appearances fed the public outrage.

"There was this nationalist posturing of not accepting international aid when it was clear that Mexico needed it," said Mexican historian Enrique Krauze.

The grass-roots aid groups that emerged from the quake helped energize a political opposition that was already growing because of economic woes.

Jeers and catcalls from frustrated Mexicans showered down on the president when he appeared at the World Cup soccer games Mexico hosted in 1986.

De la Madrid fumbled again when that opposition roused the strongest challenge yet to the party that had held an ironclad grip on Mexico for six decades. The 1988 presidential election bid by leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was so strong the results were in doubt as the votes were being counted.

The government stopped reporting vote returns for a long period and then de la Madrid declared his own hand-picked successor Carlos Salinas the victor without formal results, leading many Mexicans to assume fraud had been committed. The ballots, never recounted, were burned three years afterward.

Anger over that election helped accelerate reforms that allowed an opposition party to finally win the presidency in 2000.

De la Madrid himself claimed some small share of credit for overseeing Mexico's move to democracy. Some early reforms came under his leadership, and he shocked party faithful when he predicted a time, "when the opposition will share in the government, as Mexican political society matures."

But if Mexico's authoritarian system bent during his term, he did not break it. Opposition parties were allowed to win a few city mayoral races, but a ruling party victory for governorship of Baja California state was widely seen as fixed, and officials refused to accept clear opposition wins in some cities.

De la Madrid's main problems were rooted in the free-spending policies of Lopez Portillo, and a collapse in oil prices that left him with an economy that was spiraling rapidly downward; an inflation rate of more than 150% and an unpayable foreign debt of nearly $100 billion, more than half of the nation's gross domestic product at the time.

He raised taxes, cut the government budget, increased interest rates, and imposed price and wage controls, while renegotiating debt conditions. Inflation dropped to about 50% during his term.

The shrinking of the state also gave corrupt government officials fewer opportunities to squeeze private businessmen. De la Madrid paired it with an a "moral renovation" anti-corruption campaign that reached its high point, at least in terms of publicity, with the arrest of the state oil company chief. Still, even de la Madrid's closest aides acknowledged the overall cleanup effort largely failed.

Relations with the US, always crucial for any Mexican leader, were mixed. De la Madrid personally got along well with President Ronald Reagan, but the two governments disagreed sharply over Central America, particularly Nicaragua, where Mexico was viewed by US administration officials as perhaps the most staunch noncommunist backer of the leftist Sandinista government.

Mexico also sometimes irritated the US with its shared leadership of the so-called Contadora Group of Latin American nations, which contributed to ending the civil wars in Central America.

Relations with Washington also were damaged when a US drug agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Mexico in 1985. US officials accused several high-ranking Mexican officials of collaborating with traffickers who killed Camarena, though a Mexican judge sentenced drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero to 40 years in prison for his role in the Camarena slaying.

In an interview with the Associated Press before leaving office, de la Madrid said that the challenge of living next to such a wealthy and complicated country had fed Mexico's sense of nationalism.

"Perhaps that is one of the great advantages of being a neighbor of the United States: our desire to continue being an independent and sovereign nation that rules its own destiny," he said.

For the most part, de la Madrid kept a low profile after leaving office, heading a state publishing company for several years.