President, on a visit to the Vatican, says that he was returning home immediately.
At least 233 people have been killed in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador’s Pacific coast, President Rafael Correa said today.
“The official figure of the number killed has risen to 233,” Correa said on his Twitter account. Officials had previously put the toll of Saturday’s quake at 77 dead and nearly 600 injured.
The quake, which struck at 2358 GMT Saturday about 170 kilometers northwest of Quito, lasted about a minute and was felt across Ecuador, northern Peru and southern Colombia.
Correa said Vice President Jorge Glas was on his way to Portoviejo, a city on the Pacific in an area heavily affected by the quake.
The quake, which struck at 2358 GMT Saturday about 170 km northwest of Quito, lasted about a minute and was felt across Ecuador, northern Peru and southern Colombia.
“Oh, my God, it was the biggest and strongest earthquake I have felt in my whole life. It lasted a long time, and I was feeling dizzy,” said Maria Torres, 60, in the capital Quito, which was rocked by the late Saturday quake. “I couldn’t walk… I wanted to run out into the street, but I couldn’t.”
Glas said early Sunday that the number of confirmed deaths has reached 77, and that more than 588 people were injured.
“We know that there are citizens trapped under rubble that need to be rescued,” he said in a special TV and radio broadcast.
Officials declared a state of emergency in the six worst-hit provinces.
Police, the military and the emergency services “are in a state of maximum alert to protect the lives of citizens,” Glas said.
President Correa, on a visit to the Vatican, wrote on Twitter that he was immediately returning to Ecuador.
In the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, home to more than two million people, a bridge collapsed, crushing a car beneath it, and residents were picking through the wreckage of houses reduced to heaps of rubble and timber, an AFP photographer reported.
Ecuador’s Geophysical Office reported “considerable” structural damage “in the area near the epicentre as well as points as far away as Guayaquil.”
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the 7.8-magnitude shallow quake struck off the northwest shore of Ecuador, just 27 kilometres from the town of Muisne.
The vice president gave a slightly lower measurement of magnitude 7.6.
Leave a Reply