Magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes near Palau

Juan Vera lost three relatives when a powerful earthquake hit parts of Ecuador and Peru on Saturday, the home of his niece.

The government has offered to pay for the woman’s funeral and that of her child and partner, but Vera wonders why the local authorities allowed his relatives to live in such an old house in the first place.

“Because of its age, this building should have already been demolished,” Vera said outside the morgue in Machala, Ecuador, where he was waiting for the three bodies to be released.

Police stand next to fallen debris from a building in a business district after an earthquake rocked Machala, Ecuador, Saturday, March 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Stalin Diaz)

“I’m sorry, the sheriff’s office is the entity that has to regulate these matters through their planning departments so that the buildings are in good condition for rent or habitation.”

The magnitude 6.8 quake, as reported by the USGS, killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds, and destroyed homes and buildings in a wide variety of communities, from coastal areas to highlands.

But in Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of the homes that collapsed have a lot in common: They housed the poor, the elderly, and didn’t meet building standards in the earthquake-prone country. From the wreckage after an earthquake shook Cuenca, Ecuador. (AP) The epicenter is off the Pacific coast, about 80 kilometers south of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second largest city.

One of the victims died in Peru, while 14 others died in Ecuador, where authorities also reported that at least 381 people were injured and dozens of homes, schools and healthcare centers were damaged.

The office of Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso said 12 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and two in the highland state of Azuay.

According to the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador’s emergency response agency, one of the victims in Azuay was a passenger in a car that was smashed by rubble from a home in the Andean region of Cuenca.

A man takes a picture of a collapsed building after the Machala earthquake, Ecuador. (AP)

In El Oro, the agency also reported that several people were trapped under the rubble. In the town of Machala, a two-storey house collapsed before people could evacuate, a sidewalk collapsed and the walls of the building cracked, trapping an unknown number of people.

Architect Germán Narváez, who resides in Quito, said that the homes most affected during earthquakes are those with deficiencies in construction that lack a foundation, structure, and technical design.

He added that the houses are also old and built with materials such as adobe, which was used a lot in Andean societies.

“At critical moments seismic movements tend to collapse,” he said.

Ecuador is particularly prone to earthquakes.

Police speak to people next to the site where a car was crushed by debris after an earthquake rocked Cuenca, Ecuador, Saturday, March 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Xavier Caivinagua)

In 2016, an earthquake centered north on the Pacific coast in a sparsely populated part of the country killed more than 600 people.

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 suffered in the collapse of her home in the Tumbes region on the border with Ecuador.

The Peruvian authorities also reported the destruction of four houses and the collapse of the old walls of the army barracks in Tumbes.

Saturday’s earthquake destroyed the home of Dolores Vaca in Machala.

She said that at the moment she felt the first shock she ran into the street while her husband managed to drag their daughter outside.

Then she said: “Everything collapsed, the house was flattened, everything was lost.”

Vaca’s neighbors were not so lucky.

She said five died when the house next to hers collapsed.

In Guayaquil, about 270 kilometers southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and homes, as well as some collapsed walls.

Rescue workers stand next to a car that has been destroyed by debris after an earthquake in Cuenca, Ecuador. (AP)

Videos shared on social media show people congregated on the streets of Guayaquil, which anchors a metro area of ​​more than three million people, and nearby communities.

One video posted online showed three presenters parading from their studio desk while the set shook.

They initially try to dismiss it as a simple earthquake but quickly flee the camera.

One announcer noted that the show would be on commercial hiatus, while another repeated “Oh my God, my God”.

The Maritime Museum of Puerto Bolívar, detached from the pier, is partially flooded after the earthquake rocked Machala, Ecuador, Saturday, March 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Jorge Sanchez)

A report from Ecuador’s Directorate for Adverse Event Control ruled out a tsunami threat.

Katherine Cruz, a student from Machala, said her house shook so badly that she couldn’t even get up to leave her room and flee to the street.

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“It was awful,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.” ___

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