[ad_1]
A man takes pictures of a collapsed building after the earthquake that hit Machala, Ecuador on Saturday.
Johnny Crespo/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Johnny Crespo/AP
A man takes pictures of a collapsed building after the earthquake that hit Machala, Ecuador on Saturday.
Johnny Crespo/AP
QUITO, Ecuador — A strong earthquake shook southern Ecuador and northern Peru on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and trapping others under rubble as rescuers were dispatched to streets strewn with rubble and downed power lines. I was.
The US Geological Survey reported a magnitude 6.8 earthquake centered just off the Pacific coast about 50 miles south of Ecuador’s second largest city, Guayaquil. One of the victims died in Peru, 13 died in Ecuador, and authorities have reported at least 126 injured.
Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso told reporters that the quake “undoubtedly… set the public on alert”. In a statement, Lasso’s office said 11 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and two in the highland state of Azuay.
In Peru, the quake was felt from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otarola said his four-year-old girl died after suffering a head injury after his home collapsed in the Tumbes region on the border with Ecuador.
According to the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador’s emergency response agency, one of the victims of Azuai was a passenger in a car that was crushed by debris from a home in the Andean community of Cuenca.
In El Oro, authorities reported that several people were trapped under rubble.In the community of Machala, a two-story house collapsed, a pier collapsed, and walls of buildings cracked before people were evacuated. entered and an unknown number of people were trapped.
A police officer looks up next to a car crushed by rubble after an earthquake struck Cuenca, Ecuador on Saturday.
Xavier Caibinagua/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Xavier Caibinagua/AP
A police officer looks up next to a car crushed by rubble after an earthquake struck Cuenca, Ecuador on Saturday.
Xavier Caibinagua/AP
Firefighters were working to rescue people while national police assessed the damage, the agency said, but their work was made more difficult by downed lines that disrupted telephone and electricity services. became.
Fabricio Cruz, a Machala resident, said he felt a strong tremor and saw a TV slam into the ground when he was on the third floor of his apartment. he left at once.
“I could hear my neighbors making a lot of noise,” said Cruz, a 34-year-old photographer. He added that he looked around and noticed that the roofs of nearby houses were collapsing.
The Ecuadorian government also reported damage to medical centers and schools. Lasso said he will be traveling to El Oro on Saturday.
In Guayaquil, about 270 miles southwest of the capital Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and houses and some walls that had collapsed. Authorities have ordered the closure of his three vehicle tunnels in Guayaquil, which support a metropolitan area of more than three million people.
Videos shared on social media show people gathering on the streets of Guayaquil and in nearby communities. People reported falling objects into their homes.
One video posted online showed the show’s three anchors jump out of one’s desk in the studio Like the set rocked. They initially tried to shake it off as a minor earthquake, but quickly fled the cameras. God” repeated.
Luis Tomara was fishing with others when the earthquake struck. He said their boat started moving. Tomara said his group decided to stay at sea out of fear of possible tsunamis.
A report from Ecuador’s Adverse Events Monitoring Agency ruled out a tsunami threat.
Peruvian officials said an old wall of an army barracks had collapsed in Tumbes.
Ecuador is a particularly earthquake-prone country. In 2016, more than 600 people were killed in an earthquake centered in a sparsely populated area further north on the Pacific coast.
Catherine Cruz, a student at Machala, said her home shook so badly that she couldn’t even get up, leave her room and run into the street.
“It was horrible. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life,” she said.
[ad_2]
Source link
