Fear, grief follow deadly quake on Ecuador’s southwest coast

Some affectionally call Machala the “Banana Capital of the World.” This port community on Ecuador’s Pacific coast is home to about a quarter million people and normally bustles with commercial activity. But not this weekend, not after the deadly quake.

Grief hung in the air on Sunday, a day after a powerful temblor rocked this city, toppling homes and buildings along the coast and as far off as the Ecuadorian higlands and even parts of Peru.

Rubble covered some streets of Machala. Neighbors held simple funerals to bury the dead. A pier was no more. And a day after the quake that killed nine residents alone along this hard-hit coast, many in Machala were feeling anguished and uneasy.

“The city is quiet, fear and mourning are felt,” resident Luis Becerra said. “You feel the pain, the drama, wherever you go. Everyone is alert, with great fear in case there is a replica.”

The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey measured at magnitude 6.8, shook parts of Ecuador and Peru on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than

445 others. Fourteen of the victims died in Ecuador and one in Peru.

The quake damaged and brought down hundreds of homes and buildings in vastly different communities, both in coastal areas and the highlands. But in Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of the homes that crumbled had much in common: many were old, many did not meet modern building code standards in such a quake-prone country and many of their inhabitants were poor.

Yajaira Albarracín, Graciela Chila, Silvina Zambrano Chila and two children died under the rubble of their home in a lowincome neighborhood of Machala. On Sunday, a few neighbors stopped by a tent where the caskets of the women where set out with some floral arrangements and a standing crucifix. Some relatives said rescuers found the bodies of the women and children as if they had been clutching one another when the disaster struck.

The earthquake was centered just off the Pacific Coast, about 50 miles south of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second-largest city. Of the country’s 14 victims, 12 died in the southwest coastal state of El

Oro, which includes Machala, and two died in the highlands state of Azuay.

Ecuador is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. In 2016, a quake centered farther north on the Pacific Coast in a more sparsely populated area of the country killed more than 600 people.

Ecuador’s government issued an emergency declaration covering the roads in Azuay, where the quake debris cut off several roads and worsened already poor conditions attributed to the winter’s rainstorms.