Quake hell
7.8 tremblor kills 41 kills in Ecuador
AT LEAST 41 people were killed Saturday after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake jolted the Ecuadorian coast, officials said.
The deadly calamity was the third in a string of quakes that have rattled along the volatile “Ring of Fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean — leaving behind a trail of destruction.
The quake struck around 7 p.m., buckling buildings and drumming homes as far as 250 miles away in the capital of Quito. In Guayaquil, the country’s most populous city, an overpass collapsed on top of a car, killing one person.
President Rafael Correa, on a visit to the Vatican, sent a message of support on Twitter.
“Authorities are already out evaluating damage and taking action" as needed,” he said.
Vice President Jorge Glas said that a state of emergency had been declared across the Andean nation. Glas said the death toll is likely to rise as reports from the worsthit areas come in.
“We’re trying to the most we can, but there’s almost nothing we can do,” said Gabriel Alcivar, the mayor of Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the epicenter.
On social media, residents shared photos of homes collapsed, the roof of a shopping center coming apart and supermarket shelves shaking violently. In Manta, the airport was closed after the control tower collapsed, injuring an air force official. Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines in the OPEC-member nation were shut down as a precautionary measure.
The quake knocked out electricity in Quito, where at least six homes collapsed.
At least 36 aftershocks followed, one as strong as 6 on the Richter scale, and authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days.
Meanwhile, rescuers in Japan were racing against the weather and the threat of landslides to reach people trapped by two large earthquakes that hit the country Thursday and Saturday.
At least 41 people were reported dead in the double disaster, with at least six still missing — feared buried in flattened houses or under torrents of mud.
The twin quakes injured about 1,500 and left hundreds of thousands without electricity or water, officials said. With News Wire Services