At least 13 people died, several were injured and buildings were damaged as a result of a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that hit southern Ecuador and also its neighbor Peru, according to official records.
The tremor occurred at 12:12 local time (16:12 GMT) and had its epicenter in the Ecuadorian municipality of Balao, about 140 km from the port of Guayaquil, and at a depth of 44 km, authorities said.
The Presidency of Ecuador published a balance sheet of 12 dead on Twitter: 11 in the province of El Oro and one in the province of Azuay. He also indicated that “there are injured people who are being treated in a timely manner in hospitals”, but did not give figures.
In the Peruvian city of Tumbes, on the border with Ecuador, a four-year-old girl died after being hit in the head by a brick, according to official information.
“Where is the pool of blood, I was playing with my other niece and a block fell on her,” said David Alvarado, the child’s uncle, AFP.
The earthquake was felt most strongly in southern Ecuador, where people ran out into the streets. One of the most affected cities was Cuenca.
“People ran out, screaming desperately, everyone got out of their cars (…) desperate, they ran, screamed, cried,” said AFP Magaly Escandn, a sewing goods saleswoman in the Andean city.
In Cuenca, the facade of a house collapsed on a vehicle and left “a person dead”. Nearby, in the province of El Oro, three people died when a tower collapsed, according to Ecuador’s Risk Management Secretariat.
The earthquake left buildings collapsed, walls cracked and vehicles crushed by debris. In the historic center of Cuenca, some old houses were damaged. Some roads near the municipality were blocked by landslides.
Other cities also felt the tremor, such as Quito, Manab and Manta, according to users on social networks.
The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, made a “call for calm and information through official channels” on Twitter.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the event had a magnitude of 6.8.
In a statement, the government of Chile expressed its “solidarity” with the victims in Ecuador and stated that so far there are no reports of Chileans affected by the earthquake.
With lesser intensity, the earthquake hit the north and central coast of Peru. In Tumbes, it affected 46 people and 12 homes, according to an official report.
Seismological authorities in the country reported a magnitude of 7.0 at the time of the quake, but hours later corrected the measurement to 6.7.
two a year
Since midday, firefighters and police have been working to remove debris and rescue possible victims.
The memory of the devastating earthquake of 2016 is still in the air in Ecuador. With a magnitude of 7.8, the earthquake left 673 dead and destroyed coastal locations, with losses close to 3.3 billion dollars.
“A relatively high magnitude for what we have in the country. In the area of the Gulf of Guayaquil, we have had more or less since 2017 about two earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 5.0 per year,” said Mario Ruiz, director of the Ecuadorian Geophysical Institute , in an interview with FM Mundo radio.
According to the Oceanographic and Antarctic Institute of the Ecuadorian Navy, the tremor “does not meet the necessary conditions to generate a tsunami” in the Pacific.