Ecuador earthquake kills at least four, causes widespread damage

Magnitude 6.7 tremor shakes coastal Guayas area, damaging houses and buildings.

A powerful earthquake has shaken the area round Ecuador’s second-largest metropolis, killing no less than 4 folks, damaging houses and buildings, and sending panicked residents into the streets.

The US Geological Survey reported an earthquake on Saturday with a magnitude of 6.7 within the nation’s coastal Guayas area. It was centred about 80km (50 miles) south of Guayaquil, which anchors a metro space of greater than 3 million folks.

President Guillermo Lasso tweeted a message asking residents to stay calm.

The South American nation’s emergency response company, the Danger Administration Secretariat, reported one individual died within the Andean group of Cuenca. The sufferer was a passenger in a automobile trapped underneath the rubble of a home.

Within the coastal state of El Oro, three folks died and several other have been trapped underneath rubble, the company reported. In the neighborhood of Machala, a two-story house collapsed earlier than folks might evacuate, a pier gave means and a constructing’s partitions cracked, trapping an unknown variety of folks.

The company mentioned firefighters labored to rescue folks whereas the Nationwide Police assessed harm, their work made tougher by downed strains that interrupted phone and electrical energy service.

In Guayaquil, about 270km (170 miles) southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in homes and different buildings in addition to some collapsed partitions. Authorities ordered the closure of three highway tunnels.

Movies shared on social media present folks gathered on the streets of Guayaquil and close by communities. Folks reported objects falling inside their houses.

One video posted on-line confirmed three presenters of a tv present dart from their studio desk because the set shook.

They initially tried to shake it off as a minor quake however quickly fled off digital camera. One presenter indicated the present would go on a industrial break whereas one other repeated, “My God. My God.”

A report from Ecuador’s Adversarial Occasions Monitoring Directorate dominated out a tsunami menace.

The earthquake was additionally felt in Peru, from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. No deaths or accidents have been instantly reported. Within the northern area of Tumbes, the outdated partitions of an Military barracks collapsed, authorities mentioned.

Ecuador is especially susceptible to earthquakes. In 2016, a quake centred farther north on the Pacific Coast in a extra sparsely populated space of the nation killed greater than 600 folks.