Ecuador Powerful Earthquake Kills 77, More Than 570 Injured

Ecuador Powerful Earthquake Kills 77, More Than 570 Injured

 

QUITO, Ecuador –  The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. As rescue workers rushed in, officials said Sunday at least 77 people were killed, over 570 injured and the damage stretched for hundreds of miles to the capital and other major cities. Videos

 Earthquake in Ecuador sparsely populated fishing port and tourist beach measuring 7.8 on the 0.105 miles of Quito, the capital of the north-west of the epicenter.

Vice President George Glas number of dead as early as Sunday at a press conference has been updated. Where the quake struck shortly after dark each several hundred miles - before he believes, Portoviejo and said that there were deaths in the cities of Guayaquil.

The quake, the strongest since 1979 to hit Ecuador and access to the disaster area was difficult because of landslides.

"We're trying to do the most we can, but there's almost nothing we can do," said Gabriel Alcivar, mayor of Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the quake's epicenter.

 

Alcivar officials admitted flattened dozens of buildings in the city in an emergency for earth-moving machines and to send rescue workers, trapping residents in the rubble. He said chaos erupted between looting, but authorities to save lives, were too busy trying to re-install the system.

"This wasn't just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town," he said.

A national state of emergency, President Rafael Correa announced a decree signed and rushed home from a trip to Rome, to remain strong while Ecuador disaster officials urged tackle.

Agency to help manage the risk of Ecuador has deployed 10,000 armed forces. Cities Manabi, Esmeraldas and Guayas Y Santa Elena addition to send 3,500 National Police, it was. 500 firefighters were going to Manabi Pedernales and even those who were forced to evacuate their homes in five homes had been appointed.

Social Media, homes reduced to ruins moving pictures, the roof of a shopping center in torn, violent shaking and supermarket shelves and highway bridge, which collapsed, crushing a car. In Manta, after the fall of the airport control tower was closed, air traffic control and security guards were injured.

In the capital, Quito, people fled in fear into the streets as the quake shook their buildings. Quito Mayor Mauricio Rodas six houses collapsed in several areas, and cut off the power, but after a few hours, power was being restored.

April 16, 2016: An hotel barely stands after an earthquake in the town of Manta, Ecuador. (AP)

"I'm in a state of panic," Villena Quito Venezuela one of many residents who had gathered in the streets said. "I was taken to the building lot and things fell to the ground. It was a lot of children crying and screaming neighbors."

Bridges that killed a motorist in Guayaquil, a city in terms of population in the country was crushed by one of the buckled. For a brief period in the city to the international airport as close. Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines in the country, as a precautionary measure, a member of OPEC, but it has not been proven to be closed yet reported any damage.

Nearby towns as a preventive measure in case a tsunami epicenter have been evacuated from dangerous, but after several hours, officers had secured the coastal residents told to return to their homes.

The sports events and concerts, and at the national level had been canceled until further notice.

"It is very important that Ecuador remain calm during this emergency," Room and a national crisis in Ecuador Glass said.

The US Geological Survey initially put the quake at 7.4 magnitude and then raised to 7.8. It was at a depth of 12 miles. At least 36 aftershocks, one as strong as 6 on the Richter scale, followed by the authorities in the hours and days to come strong people urged residents to prepare.

The deadly earthquake earthquake across the Pacific Ocean, south of Japan's four main islands that came after. Kumamoto an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 on Thursday, only 28 hours after the 7.3 magnitude earthquake followed. 41 people died in the quake and 1,500 were injured, homes destroyed large landslide.

On Sunday, they lost in the United States for half a dozen people in southern Japan, thousands of rescue workers searched the rubble-strewn village military aircraft arrived to join the relief mission.