At least 15 people dead as earthquake shakes Ecuador and northern Peru
19.03.2023 - 12:59
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
At least 15 people are now known to have died after a strong earthquake shook southern Ecuador and northern Peru, trapping others under rubble and sending rescue teams out into streets littered with debris and fallen power lines.
The US Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of about 6.8 struck on Saturday just off the Pacific Coast, about 50 miles south of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second-largest city. A four-year-old girl died in Peru, while 14 others died in Ecuador, where authorities also reported that at least 126 people were injured.
Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso told reporters the earthquake had “without a doubt… generated alarm in the population”. Mr Lasso’s office said 12 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and two in the highlands state of Azuay.
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In Peru, the earthquake was felt from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otarola said a four-year-old girl died from head trauma she suffered in the collapse of her home in the Tumbes region, on the border with Ecuador.
One of the victims in Azuay was a passenger in a vehicle crushed by rubble from a house in the Andean community of Cuenca, according to the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador’s emergency response agency. In El Oro, the agency also reported that several people were trapped under rubble. In the community of Machala, a two-storey 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