Ecuador earthquake kills a minimum of 4, causes widespread harm

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

A robust earthquake has shaken the area round Ecuador’s second-largest metropolis, killing a minimum of 4 individuals, damaging properties 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 three million individuals.

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

The South American nation’s emergency response company, the Risk Management Secretariat, reported one particular person died within the Andean neighborhood of Cuenca. The sufferer was a passenger in a automobile trapped below the rubble of a home.

In the coastal state of El Oro, three individuals died and several other had been trapped below rubble, the company reported. In the neighborhood of Machala, a two-story home collapsed earlier than individuals might evacuate, a pier gave approach and a constructing’s partitions cracked, trapping an unknown variety of individuals.

The company stated firefighters labored to rescue individuals whereas the National 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.

Videos shared on social media present individuals gathered on the streets of Guayaquil and close by communities. People reported objects falling inside their properties.

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 digicam. One presenter indicated the present would go on a industrial break whereas one other repeated, “My God. My God.”

A report from Ecuador’s Adverse Events Monitoring Directorate dominated out a tsunami risk.

The earthquake was additionally felt in Peru, from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. No deaths or accidents had been instantly reported. In the northern area of Tumbes, the previous partitions of an Army barracks collapsed, authorities stated.

Ecuador is especially liable 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 individuals.