The death toll from Ecuador’s biggest earthquake in decades soared to 272 on Sunday as survivors cobbled together makeshift coffins to bury loved ones, lined up for water and sought shelter beside the rubble of their shattered homes.
The 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and destroying buildings, bridges and roads.
“Ecuador has been hit tremendously hard… This is the greatest tragedy in the last 67 years,” said a shaken President Rafael Correa, who rushed back to Ecuador from a visit to Italy.
“There are signs of life in much of the rubble and that is the priority,” Correa said in a televised address to the nation.
He confirmed 272 deaths and 2,068 injured and said he feared those figures would increase.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has shaken Ecuador Saturday, killing at least 77 people and causing considerable damage near the epicenter, but also in more distant places like Guayaquil, authorities said.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has shaken Ecuador Saturday, killing at least 77 people and causing considerable damage near the epicenter, but also in more distant places like Guayaquil, authorities said.
Vice President Jorge Glas said the toll could rise in the coming hours and that the earthquake on Saturday night was the worst that has hit Ecuador since 1979. That year, a strong jolt had 600 dead and 20 000 injured.
The government recommended that the population away from the coastline for fear of breaking waves which, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, could reach up to one meter.
panicked residents rushed into the streets of Quito, the capital, located 170 kilometers from the epicenter, and other cities around the country. The epicenter of the quake was located offshore in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 20 kilometers and was felt throughout the country.
According to the Government, the damage is “considerable” especially in the Western coastal areas near the epicenter, and in the large port city of Guayaquil.
In this image made from a video, people look over a car that was crushed when an overpass buckled in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saturday, April 16, 2016. A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, killing dozens of people and spreading panic hundreds of kilometers (miles) away as it collapsed homes and buckled a major overpass. (APTN via AP)
An hotel barely stands after an earthquake in the town of Manta, Ecuador, Saturday April 16, 2016. A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, killing at least 28 people and spreading panic hundreds of kilometers (miles) away as it collapsed homes and buckled a major overpass.(AP Photo/Patricio Ramos)
In this image made from a video, people look on after an overpass buckled in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saturday, April 16, 2016. A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, killing dozens of people and spreading panic hundreds of kilometers (miles) away as it collapsed homes and buckled a major overpass. (APTN via AP)
“Some villages are completely devastated,” said the radio Gabriel Alcivar, mayor of the city of Pedernales in the province of Manabi, hit hard. “What happened here in Pedernales, is catastrophic,” he added
The authorities have provided little detail on the situation in Guayaquil, frequent starting point for foreign tourists visiting the Galapagos archipelago.
Photos posted on social networks on the internet show a collapsed bridge in the coastal town and light damage in the lobby of a hotel.
“At first it was light, but it lasted a long time and it has become stronger,” he told Maria Jaramillo, a resident of Guayaquil citing broken glass and debris falling from roofs.
“I was on the seventh floor and the light went out in the entire neighborhood and we evacuated the premises. People were very anxious in the street. We went barefoot, “she has said.
In this image made from a video, people look on after an overpass buckled in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saturday, April 16, 2016. A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, killing dozens of people and spreading panic hundreds of kilometers (miles) away as it collapsed homes and buckled a major overpass. (APTN via AP)
Some areas of the capital were briefly without electricity and telephone. The municipal authorities subsequently announced the restoration of power and said there were no casualties in Quito.
I was in my house watching a movie quandtout started shaking. I ran into the street and maintenantje do not know what will happen, “said Lorena Cazares, 36, who works in telecommunications in Quito.
Some areas of the capital were briefly without electricity and telephone. The municipal authorities subsequently announced the restoration of power and said there were no casualties in Quito.
Police and firemen inspect a collapsed overpass in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saturday April 16, 2016. The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along the country’s coast, killing at least 41 people and causing damage hundreds of miles (kilometers) away from the epicenter in the capital and other major cities.(AP Photo/Jeff Castro)
Waves of a meter may touch a part of the coast, warned warning center for tsunamis in the Pacific.
Oil production has not been disturbed by the earthquake, authorities said.
The Pacific is lined with seismic faults and on the other side and the ocean, Japan was hit Thursday and in the night from Friday to Saturday by two earthquakes that have forty deaths in total.
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