Ecuador earthquake kills at least 12, causes widespread damage
QUITO, Ecuador — A strong earthquake shook southern Ecuador and northern Peru on Saturday, killing at least a dozen people, trapping others under rubble and sending rescue teams out into streets littered with debris and fallen power lines.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of about 6.8 that was centered just off the Pacific Coast, about 50 miles south of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second-largest city.
Risk Management Secretary Cristian Torres in a radio interview said 11 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and one in the highlands state of Azuay.
In El Oro, the agency also reported that several people were trapped under rubble. In the community of Machala, a two-story home collapsed before people could evacuate, a pier gave way and a building’s walls cracked, trapping an unknown number of people.
The agency said firefighters worked to rescue people while the National Police assessed damage, their work made more difficult by downed lines that interrupted telephone and electricity service.
Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso said he would travel on Saturday to El Oro. In a tweet, he also asked people to remain calm.
In Guayaquil, about 170 miles southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and homes, as well as collapsed walls. Authorities ordered the closure of three vehicular tunnels in Guayaquil, which anchors a metro area of over 3 million people.
A report from Ecuador’s Adverse Events Monitoring Directorate ruled out a tsunami threat.
The earthquake was also felt in Peru, from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. No deaths or injuries there were immediately reported. In the northern region of Tumbes, the old walls of an Army barracks collapsed, authorities said.
Britain asylum-seeker plan: Britain’s interior minister arrived in Rwanda on Saturday for a visit aimed at reinforcing the U.K. government’s commitment to a controversial plan to deport some asylum-seekers to the African country.
Ahead of her visit, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the migration policy “will act as a powerful deterrent against dangerous and illegal journeys.”
Britain’s Conservative government wants to stop migrants from reaching the U.K. on risky journeys across the English Channel, and a deportation agreement signed with Rwanda last year was part of measures intended to deter the arrivals. More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain by boat in 2022, compared with 8,500 in 2020.
Under the plans, some migrants who arrive in the U.K. in small boats would be flown to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in the African country rather than return to Britain.
But the $170 million plan has been mired in legal challenges, and no one has yet been sent to Rwanda.
Japan-Germany meeting: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday held the first round of government consultations in Tokyo and agreed to strengthen economic and defense ties to better cope with China’s growing influence and global security concerns.
Kishida told a joint news conference after the talks that the sides agreed to strengthen supply chains in minerals, semiconductors, batteries and other strategic areas in order to “counter economic coercion, state-led attempts to illegally acquire technology and nonmarket practices,” apparently referring to China.
“Japan and Germany, both industrial nations that share fundamental values, need to take global leadership to strengthen resilience of our societies,” Kishida said.
Dead fish: Millions of fish have washed up dead in southeastern Australia in what authorities and scientists say is caused by floods and hot weather.
The Department of Primary Industries in New South Wales state said the fish deaths coincided with a heat wave that put stress on a system that has experienced extreme conditions from wide-scale flooding.
The deaths were likely caused by low oxygen levels as floods recede, a situation made worse by fish needing more oxygen because of the warmer weather, the department said.
Residents of the Outback town of Menindee complained of a terrible smell from the dead fish.
Rocket fired at Israel: The Israeli military said Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket toward southern Israel on Saturday evening.
The rocket fell and exploded in an open area, triggering warning sirens in the Nahal Oz community to the east of Gaza City.
There were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military usually responds to such rocket fire with airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, raising the possibility of further violence just ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The rocket attack comes a day before Israeli and Palestinian officials are set to meet in Egypt in a U.S.backed effort to defuse violence that has soared for nearly a year.
California mystery: Mysterious streaks of light were seen in the sky in the Sacramento area Friday night, shocking St. Patrick’s Day revelers who then posted videos on social media of the surprising sight.
Jaime Hernandez was behind the King Cong Brewing Company in Sacramento for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration when some among the group noticed the lights. Hernandez quickly began filming. It was over in about 40 seconds, he said Saturday.
The brewery owner posted Hernandez’s video to Instagram, asking if anyone could solve the mystery.
Jonathan McDowell says he can. An astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, McDowell said Saturday that he’s 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.
McDowell said that a Japanese communications package that relayed information from the International Space Station to a communications satellite and then back to Earth became obsolete in 2017 when the satellite was retired. The equipment was jettisoned from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn up completely upon reentry, McDowell said.
The flaming bits of wreckage created a “spectacular light show in the sky,” McDowell said. He estimated the debris was about 40 miles high.
The U.S. Space Force confirmed the reentry path over California for the Inter-Orbit Communication System, and the timing is consistent with what people saw in the sky, he added.