Tag Archives: earthquake Ecuador

Two Earthquakes strike Ecuador minor injuries, light damage reported

People gather on the streets minutes after a tremor was felt in Quito

By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) – Two earthquakes struck Ecuador’s coast on Wednesday, causing minor injuries and light damage in the same region where a magnitude 7.8 tremor killed more than 650 people last month.

Wednesday’s tremors, measuring 6.7 and 6.8 in magnitude, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, cut electricity in some coastal areas and sent people running into the streets as far away as the highland capital of Quito, witnesses said.

President Rafael Correa said the epicenter of the first one overnight was the fishing village of Mompiche on the Pacific coast, about 368 km (229 miles) from Quito.

“There are some light injuries because people ran out, or bumped into things,” Correa said on state television, adding there was also some minor damage, mainly to infrastructure already hit by the April disaster.

There was no tsunami warning.

The second tremor struck just before midday, according to the U.S. Geological survey.

The April 16 earthquake, Ecuador’s worst in nearly seven decades, flattened buildings along the coast.

As well as the fatalities, the tremor also injured more than 6,000 people, made nearly 29,000 homeless, and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage, according to the government’s latest tally.

Correa described Wednesday’s first tremor as another aftershock from the April quake. “Despite the alarm and the scare and the possibility of new damage … it’s normal, you expect aftershocks for two months after,” he said.

Ecuador’s 110,000-barrel-per-day Esmeraldas refinery was working at 77 percent capacity after some operations were halted due to the first quake on Wednesday, the government said before the second tremor.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and James Dalgleish)

Survivors in Ecuador clamor for food, water and medicine

People receive donations from volunteers as rescue efforts continue in Pedernales

By Ana Isabel Martinez and Julia Symmes Cobb

SAN JACINTO/PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) – Survivors of an earthquake that killed 570 people and shattered Ecuador’s coast clamored for food, water and medicine on Thursday as aid failed to reach some of the remotest parts of the quake zone.

President Rafael Correa’s socialist government, facing a mammoth rebuilding task at a time of slashed oil revenues in the OPEC nation, said there was no lack of aid – just problems with distribution that should be quickly resolved.

“We’re trying to survive. We need food,” said Galo Garcia, 65, a lawyer, waiting in line for water from a truck sent to the beachside village of San Jacinto. “There’s nothing in the shops. We’re eating the vegetables we grow.”

A crowd nearby chanted: “We want food.”

The government quickly moved supplies to the main towns and set up shelters for nearly 25,000 people in soccer stadiums and airports but the shattered state of the roads has impeded aid reaching remoter areas.

Many people left their villages seeking help while on roads near Pedernales, one of the worst-hit towns, children from rural areas held signs begging for food.

CHILDREN CRYING

Jose Rodriguez, 24, drove two hours from Calceta village to a food storage point outside Pedernales.

“It’s not reaching us,” he said, giving his address and phone number to a military office. “I came here to see if they could give me something but it’s impossible.”

A government official asked another supplicant, Jose Gregorio Basulor, 55, to stay calm. “I can be patient but not the children!” he shouted back. “They are crying.”

Correa has said Ecuador will temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds on the international market to fund reconstruction after Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake. He has estimated damage at $2 billion to $3 billion.

Lower oil revenue already had left the nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

“There are rumors there’s a shortage of water,” Correa said late on Wednesday, responding to complaints about the aid operation. “We have plenty of water. The problem is distribution,” he added, promising speedy solutions.

Ecuador’s worst earthquake in nearly seven decades injured 7,000 people and damaged close to 2,000 buildings. Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have arrived and 14,000 security personnel are keeping order, with only sporadic looting.

Correa said the death toll would have been lower had Ecuadoreans respected construction regulations beefed up after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 300,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Bill Trott)

Ecuador disaster toll tops 500, big new quake shakes coast

A flattened car is seen under the debris of a collapsed hotel after an earthquake struck off the Pacific coast in Pedernales, Ecuador

PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook Ecuador’s coast early on Wednesday, terrifying locals and impeding rescuers after a bigger weekend quake battered the same area and killed nearly 500 people.

The latest earthquake hit 25 km (15 miles) off Muisne on the northwest Pacific coast at a depth of 15 km, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

That was near the epicenter of Saturday’s 7.8 quake, which devastated a long swath of the coast and dealt a major blow to the oil-producing nation’s already fragile economy.

Witnesses said two strong tremors of about 30 seconds each woke people up and sent them running into the street.

No tsunami warning was issued, and there were no immediate reports of major damage.

Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute said there were in fact two quakes of magnitude 6.2, followed by 17 aftershocks. The USGS, however, mentioned one quake of 6.1 size.

Local media reported that rescue operations were temporarily suspended because of the new earthquake, amid dwindling hopes of finding more survivors from Saturday’s quake.

That earthquake quake killed 480 people, left another 107 missing, and injured more than 4,600. It also destroyed about 1,500 buildings, triggered mudslides and tore up roads.

Some 20,500 people were left sleeping in shelters.

“PLEASE, GIVE US THE CORPSES”

Supervising work in the disaster zone, President Rafael Correa said the weekend quake had inflicted $2 billion to $3 billion of damage to the economy and could knock 2 to 3 percentage points off growth.

Lower crude revenue had already left the poor Andean nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth, cutting investment and forcing it to seek financing.

In isolated villages and towns, survivors struggled without water, power or transport, although aid was trickling in.

Along Ecuador’s Pacific coast, sports stadiums served as both morgues and aid-distribution centers.

Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have come to help. About 14,000 security force members are keeping order, but sporadic looting has been reported.

Rescuers were losing hope of finding more people alive, although relatives of the missing begged them to keep looking.

“There is still a small margin of time to find survivors,” Correa said. “But I don’t want to give excessive hope.”

One woman arrived from the highland capital Quito in search of her daughter and niece, who had been on a beach trip, and urged police to take care with excavators as they searched a destroyed hotel in Pedernales.

“Please,” she said, “at least give us the corpses intact.”

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Larry King and Lisa Von Ahn)

Dwindling hopes for Ecuador, death toll over 400

Ecuador's President Correa embraces a resident after the earthquake in the town of Canoa

y Julia Symmes Cobb and Ana Isabel Martinez

PEDERNALES/CANOA, Ecuador (Reuters) – Earthquake-stricken Ecuador faced the grim reality of recovering more bodies than survivors as rescue efforts went into a third day on Tuesday and the death toll climbed over 400 in the poor South American country.

Praying for miracles, distraught family members beseeched rescue teams to find missing loved ones as they dug through debris of flattened homes, hotels, and stores in the hardest-hit Pacific coastal region.

Meanwhile, a moved President Rafael Correa, visiting the disaster zone, said the quake had inflicted between $2 billion and $3 billion of damage on the OPEC nation’s already-fragile economy.

The damage from the quake could knock between two and three percentage points off gross domestic product growth, he told reporters. “Let’s not deceive ourselves, it’s going to be a long struggle … Reconstruction for years, billions (of dollars) in investment.”

In Pedernales, a devastated rustic beach town, crowds gathered behind yellow tape to watch firemen and police sift through rubble overnight. The town’s soccer stadium was serving as a makeshift relief center and a morgue.

“Find my brother! Please!” shouted Manuel, 17, throwing his arms up to the sky in front of a small corner store where his younger brother had been working when the quake struck.

When an onlooker said recovering a body would at least give him the comfort of burying his sibling, he yelled: “Don’t say that!”

But for Manuel and hundreds of other anxious Ecuadoreans with relatives missing, time was running out.

As of Tuesday, rescue efforts would become more of a search for corpses, Interior Minister Jose Serrano told Reuters.

The death toll stood at 413, but was expected to rise.

The quake has injured at least 2,600 people, damaged over 1,500 buildings, and left 18,000 people spending the night in shelters, according to the government.

In many isolated villages or towns struck by the quake, survivors struggled without water, power, or transport. Rescue operations continued, but the sickly, sweet stench of death told them what they were most likely to find.

“There are bodies crushed in the wreckage and from the smell it’s obvious they are dead,” said Army Captain Marco Borja in the small tourist village of Canoa.

“Today we brought out between seven and eight bodies.”

Nearly 400 rescue workers flew in from various Latin American neighbors, along with 83 specialists from Switzerland and Spain, to boost rescue efforts. The United States said it would dispatch a team of disaster experts while Cuba was sending a team of doctors.

To finance the costs of the emergency, some $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated, the government said.

Ecuador also announced late Monday it had signed off on a credit line for $2 billion from the China Development Bank to finance public investment. China has been the largest financier of Ecuador since 2009 and the credit had been under negotiation before the quake.

(Repoprting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Pedernales and Ana Isabel Martinez in Canoa; Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)