Aid begins to arrive after quake kills hundreds
Associated Press
PEDERNALES, Ecuador
Aid began to flow in Sunday to areas devastated by Ecuador’s strongest earthquake in decades and the death toll continued to rise as people left homeless hunkered down for another night outside in the dark.
Officials said the quake killed at least 262 people and injured more than 2,500 along Ecuador’s coast. Vice President Jorge Glas said the toll was likely to rise because a large number of people remained unaccounted for, though he declined to say how many.
Much damage was reported in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil, which are all several hundred miles from the epicenter of the quake that struck shortly after nightfall Saturday.
The loss of life seemed to be far worse in isolated, smaller towns closed to the center of the quake.
In Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the epicenter, soldiers put up a field hospital in a stadium where hundreds of people prepared to sleep outside for a second-straight night. Downed power cables snaked across the streets with no prospect of electricity being restored soon.
The town’s mayor said looting broke out Saturday night amid the chaos, but with the arrival of 14,000 police and soldiers to towns in the quake zone, the situation appeared more under control.
President Rafael Correa, who cut short a trip to Rome to oversee relief efforts, declared a national emergency and urged Ecuadoreans to stay strong.
More than 3,000 packages of food and nearly 8,000 sleeping kits were being delivered Sunday. Ecuador’s ally, Venezuela, and neighboring Colombia, where the quake also was felt, organized airlifts of humanitarian aid.