A strong earthquake shook the south Ecuador and northern Peru on Saturday, killing at least 12 people, trapping others under the rubble and sending rescue teams into streets littered with debris and downed power lines.
The US Geological Survey reported a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the country’s coastal Guayas region. Its center was about 80 kilometers south of Guayaquil, which has a metropolitan area of more than 3 million people.
Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso said in a televised address that the earthquake killed 12 people. In a tweet, he also asked people to remain calm.
Cristian Torres, head of the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador’s emergency services, said in a radio interview that 11 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and one in the highland state of Azuay.
The victim in Azuay’s Andean community of Cuenca was a passenger in a vehicle crushed by debris from a house, the agency said.
In the coastal province of El Oro, people were trapped under rubble, the agency reported. In the community of Machala, a two-storey house collapsed before people could be evacuated, a pier gave way and the walls of a building burst, trapping an unknown number of people.
Machala resident Fabricio Cruz said he was in his third-floor apartment when he felt a strong tremor and saw his TV hit the ground. He immediately went out.
“I heard my neighbors screaming and there was a lot of noise,” said Cruz, a 34-year-old photographer. He added that when he looked around, he noticed the collapsed roofs of nearby houses.
The agency said firefighters worked to rescue people while national police assessed the damage, their work hampered by downed power lines that cut phone and electricity services.
In Guayaquil, about 170 miles southwest of the capital Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and homes, as well as some collapsed walls. The authorities ordered the closure of three vehicle tunnels.
Videos shared on social media showed people gathered in the streets of Guayaquil and nearby communities, and people reported objects falling into their homes.
A video posted online showed three TV presenters arrows from their studio desk as their set rocked. They first tried to dismiss the tremors as a minor quake but soon fled the camera. One anchor indicated the show was going to a commercial break, while another repeated, “My God, my God.”
A report by Ecuador’s Adverse Events Surveillance 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 were immediately reported. In the northern region of Tumbes, the old walls of an army barracks collapsed, authorities said.
Ecuador is particularly prone to earthquakes. In 2016, a quake further north on the Pacific coast was centered in a more sparsely populated area of the country killed more than 600 people.