Latin-America
Condemned building used by homeless people falls in Brazil, killing 14 people
An apartment building condemned for more than a decade but used by homeless people collapsed in Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, killing 14 people, including six children, firefighters reported Saturday.
The building in Recife’s Paulista suburb crumbled in the early hours of Friday, prompting a frantic search for victims.
Searchers combed through the rubble with the help of sniffer dogs and rescued two 15-year-old girls and a 65-year-old woman alive, firefighters said. An 18-year-old man was also removed alive, but later died from his injuries.
“Search operations are now focused on the removal of animals,” the fire department said Saturday.
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The building was occupied by homeless people although living there had been forbidden since 2010, the Paulista city hall said in a statement.
City officials referred to the structure as a “coffin block,” a name given to buildings built on a large scale in the 1970s in the metropolitan region of Recife, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported.
The city hall statement said the problem of people using officially closed buildings in Paulista is “chronic.” It said officials raised the issue during a recent visit by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is from the northeastern state.
The collapse in Paulista was the second such tragedy in less than three months in Pernambuco. A building disintegrated in April in neighboring Olinda, causing at least five deaths.
Read:Turkey earthquake: Missing Bangladeshi student rescued from collapsed building
Heavy rains had soaked the Recife region before the building collapsed in Paulista, prompting Pernambuco’s water and climate agency to post an alert for the metropolitan area.
A Presbyterian church near the site of the fallen building was offering housing assistance to families who had been living there, city officials said. The church was also collecting donations of food, clothes, mattresses, water and hygiene products, officials added.
Read more: 8 more dead pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida condo
In Lula's first six months, Brazil Amazon deforestation dropped 34%, reversing trend under Bolsonaro
After four years of rising destruction in Brazil's Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's term, according to government satellite data released Thursday.
From January to June the rainforest had alerts for possible deforestation covering 2,650 square kilometers (1,023 square miles), down from 4,000 square kilometers — an area the size of Rhode Island — during the same period last year under former President Jair Bolsonaro. This year's data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump.
"The effort of reversing the curve of growth has been reached. That is a fact: we reversed the curve; deforestation isn't increasing," João Paulo Capobianco, the Environment Ministry's executive secretary, said during a presentation in Brasilia.
An Amazon rainforest rite of passage in threatened territory
Capobianco noted that full-year results will depend on a few challenging months ahead. Still, the data is an encouraging sign for Lula, who campaigned last year with pledges to rein in illegal logging and undo the environmental devastation during Bolsonaro's term. The former far-right leader weakened environmental authorities while his insistence on development of the Amazon region resonated with landgrabbers and farmers who had long felt maligned by environmental laws. They were emboldened, and Amazon deforestation surged to a 15-year high.
Thursday's deforestation data comes from a system called Deter, managed by the National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency. It is an initiative mainly focused on detecting real-time deforestation. The most accurate deforestation calculations come from another system called Prodes, with data released only annually.
"Bottom line, we are prioritizing environmental law enforcement," Jair Schmitt, head of environmental protection at Ibama, Brazil's federal environmental agency, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
However, the continued shortage of personnel means the task hasn't been easy, he said. Many Ibama agents retired and weren't replaced during Bolsonaro's administration, reflecting his effort to defang environmental authorities. Lula has committed to restoring the workforce, but the number of Ibama's enforcement agents remains at its lowest in 24 years. For the entire country that is bigger than the contiguous U.S., there are just 700 agents, with 150 available for deployment.
Haunted by post-election riot, Brazil’s Lula reins in army
Ibama has also strengthened remote surveillance, where deforestation is detected through satellite imagery, according to Schmitt. By cross-referencing with land records, it is possible to identify the owner of the area in many cases, leading to an embargo that restricts access to financial loans and imposes other sanctions.
Another strategy has been to seize thousands of illegally raised cattle within embargoed areas. It is effective because it inflicts immediate punishment, whereas fines are rarely paid in Brazil due to a slow appeals process, Schmitt said.
Rodrigo Agostinho, the head of Ibama, noted in the presentation Thursday that the value of fines imposed in the first half of the year jumped 167% from the 2019-2022 average, and the agency embargoed 2,086 areas — up 111%.
"We started the year with a lot of difficulty because of everything we inherited, reorganizing all the enforcement teams, environmental protection, reactivating tech systems," said Agostinho.
Brazil: UN regional group has endorsed Amazon city to host 2025 climate conference
Improved deforestation data also reflect the change in rhetoric coming from the top, said Schmitt. Whereas Bolsonaro openly criticized Ibama and advocated for the legalization of deforested areas, Lula has said he will rebuild law enforcement and promised to expel invaders from protected areas. Experts say the mere expectation that a land-grabbed area will eventually be regularized has historically been one of deforestation's biggest drivers.
It may be premature to celebrate the reversal in deforestation's trend, however. According to satellite monitoring, there were 3,075 fires in the Amazon in June alone, which marks the beginning of the dry season — the most since 2007. The jump is due to the clearing of areas deforested in the second half of 2022, Schmitt said. In the Amazon, fires are mostly man-made and occur after clear-cutting of the forest.
With El Niño looming, which typically brings less rain and higher temperatures to the Amazon, Ibama has doubled its budget for fighting forest fires and increased the scope of its fire squads by 17% for the most critical period, typically July to October. Approximately half of the 2,117 temporary firefighters are Indigenous peoples.
The Amazon rainforest covers an area twice the size of India and holds tremendous stores of carbon, serving as a crucial buffer against climate change. Two-thirds of it is located in Brazil.
Next month, Lula will preside over a meeting in Belem, bringing together heads-of-state from all Amazonian nations to discuss means to effectively cooperate in the challenging region. Lula has promised to end net deforestation in Brazil's Amazon by 2030. His four-year mandate, his third term, ends two years earlier.
To achieve this, law enforcement alone will not be enough, says Adevaldo Dias, a rubber-tapper leader who presides over the Chico Mendes Memorial, a non-profit organization that assists traditional non-Indigenous communities in the Amazon.
"It is necessary to invest in sustainable productive chains under community management, such as managed pirarucu (arapaima) fishing, Brazil nuts, vegetable oils, and açai," he told the AP. "This will help revitalize and expand these chains, generating decent income for those engaged in conservation efforts within their territories."
Ibama's Agostinho also stressed his agency's efforts within Indigenous territories, particularly the land of the Yanomami people where thousands of illegal gold miners — seeking to carve out a living — invaded during Bolsonaro's term.
Their activities contaminated waterways and sickened local people, and Lula's government has spent months expelling most of them. Some remain, however, working at night to avoid being caught, Agostinho said.
"We are very content with the result so far," he said. "We know the fight isn't over, we will continue doing this work."
Bus full of seniors heading to a casino in Canada collides with truck, killing 15 people
A bus carrying seniors to a casino collided with a semi-trailer truck at a highway intersection in a rural part of the Canadian province of Manitoba Thursday, killing 15 people and injuring 10 more, police said.
Rob Hill, Commanding Officer of the Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said the bus was carrying 25 people and authorities in Manitoba were deploying all their resources to the scene. Ten people were taken to hospitals.
TV broadcasters aired images of what looked like a large van or bus smoldering in a ditch near a transport truck with a smashed engine on a road. The pavement was littered with debris — broken glass, a large bumper and what looked like a walking aid. Seven blue and yellow tarps were stretched out.
Also read: Black Lives Matter movement lost support among Americans after 2020: Report
RCMP Supt. Rob Lasson said "as of right now the drivers of both the bus and truck are alive and in hospital." He did not say if they were among the 10 listed as injured. The dead were mainly seniors.
Lasson said the bus was heading south and there would have been a stop and yield sign. He said the bus was crossing the east bound lanes when it was struck by the truck that was going east, adding that who had the right of way is critical to the investigation.
"The public is reeling and asking a lot of questions and people are trying to determine if their loved ones were involved," Lasson said. "Death on this scale is never normalized for us."
Also read: At least 15 people killed and dozens injured in bus crash in Mali
The crash scene was in Carberry, a city 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Manitoba's capital of Winnipeg.
"The news from Carberry, Manitoba is incredibly tragic," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. "I'm sending my deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones today, and I'm keeping the injured in my thoughts."
A family support center has been set up at a Lutheran Church in Dauphin, Manitoba for relatives. Police said the people on the bus were from Dauphin and the areas around it.
Flags have been lowered to half-staff at the Manitoba legislature.
Also read: Bus carrying wedding guests in Australian wine region rolls over, killing 10 and injuring 25
A spokesperson for the Sand Hills Casino in Carberry said the van had been scheduled to arrive there later in the day.
Kim Armstrong, the administrator of the Dauphin senior center, said the bus left from the senior center Thursday morning.
The senior community is extremely tight knit in the city of around 8,600 people and the center is sometimes like a second home, she said.
"It's huge to lose so many individuals of our community and of course it is shocking. We just pray for those that are surviving," she said.
Armstrong said seniors and community members often go on trips on buses to nearby events or casinos.
The truck company said in a statement it was heartbroken about the crash but had limited details about what happened.
"We will fully cooperate with the investigation and offer any assistance and support that we can," said William Doherty, CEO of Day & Ross.
Nirmesh Vadera, who was working at a business on the side of the highway when the crash happened, said he went outside and saw a transport truck with a smashed engine on the highway. The bus was on fire in the grass on the side of the road. First responders were trying to get people out of the burning vehicle, he said.
"It was burning and all the (firefighters) and medical help and everybody was trying to get them away from the fire," he said.
The crash brought back memories of the 2018 bus crash in the neighboring province of Saskatchewan that killed 16 people from the Humboldt Broncos minor league hockey team. Lasson said investigators in that crash are assisting.
"Sadly this is a day in Manitoba and across Canada that will be remembered as one of tragedy and incredible sadness," said Hill, the RCMP commanding officer.
An Amazon rainforest rite of passage in threatened territory
The Indigenous adolescents danced in a circle under the thatched-roof hut from nearly dawn to dusk while parents looked on from the perimeter. Some of the adults smoked tobacco mixed with the wood from a local tree in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.
The seemingly endless loop of the procession, taking place over six long days this month, was leaving some Tembé Tenehara youngsters with swollen and bandaged feet. They were receiving little to eat and spending each night sleeping in hammocks slung in the hut. But in the Alto Rio Guama territory, it is all part of a vital rite of passage known as "Wyra'whaw."
Also Read: Brazil: UN regional group has endorsed Amazon city to host 2025 climate conference
Girls taking part in the coming-of-age ritual had already had their first period. Boys' voices had begun to slip into lower registers. Upon the final day, the girls and boys would be viewed by the Teko-Haw village as women and men, and assume their roles leading the community into an uncertain future.
"We know of other ethnic (Indigenous) groups in Brazil that have already lost their culture, their tradition, their language. So we have this concern," Sergio Muti Tembé, leader of the Tembé people in the territory, told The Associated Press. Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon customarily adopt their ethnic group's name as their surname.
Also Read: Australian Parliament takes step toward holding a referendum on Indigenous Voice this year
Their culture has been increasingly threatened over recent years. The Alto Rio Guama territory is a 280,000-hectare (1,081-square-mile) triangle of preserved forest surrounded by severely logged landscape in the northeastern Amazon, home to 2,500 people of the Tembé, Timbira and Kaapor ethnicities.
But it has also been occupied by some 1,600 non-Indigenous settlers. Some of those invaders have been there for decades. Many log the territory's trees or grow marijuana, according to public prosecutors in Para state.
The local Indigenous people already patrol and try to expel outsiders themselves. With limited capacity and authority, however, they have been eager for help. State and federal authorities last month put into motion a plan to remove them. The operation represents the first effort under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to remove landgrabbers, following an initiative to remove illegal gold miners from the Yanomami people's territory.
Authorities threatened forcible expulsion of settlers who failed to leave, and pledged to eliminate access roads and irregular installations, according to a prosecutors' statement detailing plans. As of Monday, 90% of settlers had voluntarily departed, with rain-ravaged roads impeding the rest, according to a statement from the general secretariat of Brazil's presidency.
"The expectation is that, by the end of the week, we can complete the total eviction," Nilton Tubino, the operation's coordinator, was quoted as saying in the statement.
Sergio Muti Tembé, the leader, said the government's effort came not a moment too soon, and that his people are hopeful it will ensure the future of both their land and their customs.
Also Read: Germany pledges $222 million for Brazil environment, Amazon
On the second to last day of the Wyra'whaw ritual, mothers painted their children's bodies with the juice of the genipap fruit. Within hours, it had dyed their skin black; girls were transformed from head to toe, while boys exhibited designs and an upside-down triangle across the lower half of their face, almost resembling a beard.
The following morning, each adorned adolescent was given a white headband with dangling feathers. Pairs of boys and girls locked arms as they skipped barefoot around villagers gathered in the circle's center, and made their final approach to adulthood.
Fire in gold mine kills at least 27, Peruvian officials say
A fire broke out deep in a gold mine in southern Peru and killed at least 27 workers during an overnight shift, Peruvian authorities reported.
The Yanaquihua mining company said in a statement that a total of 175 workers had been safely evacuated after the accident, which happened late Friday or early Saturday. It said the 27 dead worked for a contractor that specializes in mining.
READ: Gazipur factory fire brought under control
Government officials said the cause of the incident was under investigation. Some news reports said preliminary investigations indicated an explosion might have been set off by a short circuit in a part of the mine about 100 meters (330 feet) below the surface.
Relatives of the victims were brought by buses to the mine in Yanaquihua in the Arequipa region, where they were briefed by security agents. Some sat in front of posters at the entrance to the mine to wait for the bodies of their loved ones.
Marcelina Aguirre said her husband was among the dead. She said he had told her there were risks at the mine.
READ: Boat capsizes in southern India, at least 20 people dead
“We are very worried, very sad we are, to lose a husband, leaving two abandoned children,” she said.
The Public Ministry of Arequipa’s Fiscal District said investigators were working to clarify what happened. “During the investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office will determine the cause of the tragic event and the responsibilities of those involved,” its statement said.
Paraguay far-right populist presidential candidate arrested
Paraguayan police on Friday detained Paraguayo Cubas, a far-right populist who came in third in Sunday’s presidential election and encouraged his supporters to protest over his unsubstantiated claims that the vote was marred by fraud.
Cubas was being held in preventive detention under an order by the Attorney General’s Office that is accusing him of breach of the peace, Police Commissioner Gilberto Fleitas said in a radio interview.
Cubas, the candidate of the National Crusade Party who received 23% of the votes Sunday, was broadcasting live on Facebook when officers detained him outside his hotel in San Lorenzo, around 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Asunción.
Fleitas said Cubas got into a police vehicle “without any difficulty," but he continued streaming live.
In his broadcast from inside the police vehicle, Cubas chatted with officers and focused the camera on his handcuffs. “You can see now I’m being imprisoned,” he said. “All the criminals in this country should be handcuffed like Paraguayo Cubas.”
Cubas had been telling supporters since Monday that he was heading to the capital to lead a series of protests that had led to isolated clashes with police, largely outside the electoral court in Asunción.
“We will remain on the streets until Paraguayo Cubas is released,” said Juan Reyes, one of hundreds of Cubas supporters who took part in demonstrations outside the electoral court.
At least 208 people have been detained “for disturbance of public peace and other punishable offenses within the framework of the demonstrations taking place in the national territory,” police said Thursday.
Efraín Alegre, who as the candidate of a broad-based opposition coalition came in second place during Sunday’s election, demanded Cubas be released along with everyone who has been detained in protests this week.
“We demand the release of Paraguayo Cubas and all citizens imprisoned for demanding transparency," Alegre wrote on social media.
Alegre, who received 27% of the vote Sunday, conceded the race shortly after polls closed, but then on Monday called for a manual count of votes and an international audit of the country’s electronic voting system after Cubas aired his fraud allegations.
The Organization of American States, which deployed an observation mission for the election, said Tuesday there was “no reason to doubt the results” of the vote count.
Santiago Peña of the long-ruling Colorado Party easily won Sunday’s presidential election with 43% of the vote.
Over the past few days, Cubas has published images of supporters welcoming him in different parts of the country as he made his way toward the capital from Ciudad del Este, a city on the border with Brazil and Argentina.
Some 1,500 to 1,800 law enforcement officers were deployed outside the electoral court Friday for the protest staged by Cubas supporters. Authorities also prepared for any demonstration outside the police station where Cubas was taken.
Chains and pains: How one Mexican town celebrates Holy Week
Barefoot, half naked and blindfolded, throngs of middle aged men groan as they drag their bodies along blazing cobblestone streets.
Pieces of cactus sit lodged on their arms and legs, and 70-pound chains hang around their necks and clatter around their ankles as crowds watch them pass.
For these men, it’s not a form of torture, but rather a cherished tradition that has played out for more than a hundred years in the Mexican town of Atlixco.
Every year on Good Friday in the small Mexican town of Atlixco, more than a hundred men make the trek known as the Procesión de los Engrillados — the Procession of the Chained.
In this country where nearly 80% of the people are Roman Catholic, the participants believe it’s a way to give thanks or to pay penance for their sins.
“It’s an act of gratitude for all that God has given me, and a way to ask for forgiveness for all the bad I’ve done to be a better person,” said Martín Cazares, 42, who has participated in the march for two decades. “It helps me reflect.”
Chains wound around Cazares’ bare chest, a red cloth wrapped around his eyes and a crown of thorns rested on his head. He waited patiently for his turn, while event organizers tossed small, spiny chunks of cactus onto his legs, and those of the other marchers, where they stuck in the flesh.
Organizers say the story behind the tradition dates back to a man who was said to use witchcraft to win a woman’s heart. He went to a cemetery and cut off the finger of a dead man to make an amulet to win her love, the story goes.
But wracked with guilt, he decided to pay penance wearing heavy chains and trudging through Atlixco each Friday before Easter. Over the past century the tradition has gradually grown.
Sweat-drenched men walk more than a mile through the town of multicolored buildings and colonial churches two hours outside the capital Mexico City.
Hundreds of onlookers line the street as volunteers fan the chained men with pieces of cardboard and squeeze pieces of lime into their mouths — the only thing they are allowed to drink during their walk. Blood drips from the calves of some men as the volunteers pick up pieces of fallen cactus and lob them back at their bodies.
“The spines are very painful, and it’s exhausting,” Cazares said. “The heat suffocates you, and the exhaustion with the sun, the sun burning your feet, it’s too much."
Yet Cazares said he participates every year without fail.
Leticia Bautista, 58, who has lived in Atlixco her entire life, said she remembers watching with horror as her uncle joined the march for three years when she was a little girl.
“I think God forgives you for the simple act of asking for forgiveness," she said. “You don’t have to do such nasty things to your body.”
Others like Alicia Garcés, coordinator of the march, brush off criticisms that the procession is something morbid.
She feels the event is a tradition worth preserving, but she worries that participation has dropped off in recent years. That has coincided with a dip in Catholicism across Mexico, a country with one of the largest number of Catholics in the world.
Since 1990, the share of Mexicans who identify themselves as Catholic has dropped from just over 90% to 78%, according to Mexico’s 2020 census.
The cornavirus pandemic also dealt a blow to the Procesión de los Engrillados, and Garcés hoped this year's event would rekindle interest.
“For the people of this town, it’s very important that today, after three years of pandemic, we return to the streets to live this passion,” she said.
Man in Brazil kills 4 children, injures 3 at daycare center
A man who invaded a daycare center with a hatchet killed four children and injured at least three others Wednesday in southern Brazil, authorities said.
Santa Catarina state's Gov. Jorginho Mello confirmed the killings in the city of Blumenau on his Twitter account, and wrote that the killer has been arrested. The state’s firefighters corps confirmed the man attacked with a hatchet and that three children were taken to the hospital.
Images broadcast on television showed weeping parents outside the private daycare center, named Cantinho do Bom Pastor. Local media reported the attacker scaled a wall to enter the daycare center wielding a hatchet.
Neither the state’s military police nor its security secretariat immediately responded to Associated Press requests for more information.
School attacks in Brazil had been uncommon, but have begun happening with greater frequency in recent years. Last week, a student in Sao Paulo stabbed a teacher, killing her, and also wounded several others in Sao Paulo.
“May God comfort the hearts of all families in this moment of deep pain,” Gov. Mello wrote on Twitter.
Blumenau, a city of 366,000 people, is famous for its annual Oktoberfest festival.
Landslide in Ecuador kills at least 7, with dozens missing
A huge landslide swept over an Andean community in central Ecuador, burying dozens of homes, killing at least seven people and sending rescuers on a frantic search for survivors, authorities said Monday.
Earlier in the day, officials had reported 16 deaths, but President Guillermo Lasso put the confirmed toll at seven as he arrived Monday night at the scene of the disaster in Alausí, about 137 miles south of the capital, Quito. Officials also raised the number of people reported missing to 62.
Lasso lamented the tragedy and promised people in the town that “we will continue working" on the search effort.
Ecuador’s Risk Management Secretariat said more than 30 people were rescued after the mountainside collapsed around 10 p.m. Sunday. It said 23 people were injured.
“My mother is buried" under the mud, said Luis Ángel González, 58, who also lost other family members Sunday. "I am so sad, devastated. There is nothing here, no houses, no anything. We are homeless (and) without family.”
The risk management agency estimated 500 people and 163 homes were affected by the disaster, which also destroyed a portion of the Pan-American Highway.
The governor of Chimborazo, Ivan Vinueza, told The Associated Press that some of the injured were taken to area hospitals. He said officials had urged people to evacuate the area after landslides and cracks began to develop about two months ago. Some followed the advice, and by Saturday, as tremors intensified, others fled.
Area residents told local media they heard tremors on the mountain before the landslide, which was estimated to be about 150 meters (490 feet) wide and nearly a half mile (700 meters) long. It swept away trees, homes and other buildings. More than fifty houses were buried under tons of mud of debris.
The emergency response agency said 60% of potable water service in the area was affected by the landslide. The communication’s office of the presidential office said some schools would be switching to online classes.
Firefighters from a half dozen cities were dispatched to the area to help. Rescuers focused on the flanks of the landslide where they found traces and debris of houses.
Rescuer and paramedic Alberto Escobar said it was unlikely more survivors would be found because of the time that had elapsed.
He said the search would continue as long as it did not rain.
Video from cameras connected to the country’s emergency service network showed people fleeing their homes with help from neighbors. It also showed people transporting appliances and other belongings in vehicles.
Survivors, many housed in temporary shelters, cried over their misfortune.
Among them was the Zuña family, who were staying at the Iglesia Matriz de Alausí, where rooms for catechism or parish meetings were adapted with bunk beds days ago after authorities declared an emergency in the area due to the risk of landslides.
Sonia Guadalupe Zuña said her mother was reluctant to leave what they had built over the years.
“We went to the shelter, but my mother didn’t want to,” Zuña said. “Later, my daughter went to convince her. When they walked along the rails, everything collapsed. They arrived covered in dirt and crying.”
Save for the clothes they had on, Zuña's family lost everything.
“I don’t know where, but we’re all leaving," she said crying. "My parents taught us that by working hard, you get material things, but being together is priceless.”
From highlands to the coast, quake damages Ecuador, Peru
Juan Vera lost three relatives when a strong earthquake that shook parts of Ecuador and Peru on Saturday brought down his niece’s home. The government has offered to pay for the woman’s funeral and those of her baby and her partner, but Vera wonders why local authorities allowed his relatives to live in such an old home to begin with.
“Because of its age, that building should have been demolished already,” Vera said outside the morgue in Ecuador’s community of Machala, where he was waiting for the three bodies to be released. “... I’m sorry, the mayor’s office is the entity that has to regulate these things through its planning departments so that the buildings are in good condition to be rented out or inhabited.”
The earthquake with about 6.8 magnitude, as reported by the U.S. Geological Survey, killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds and brought down homes and buildings in vastly different communities, from coastal areas to the highlands. But in Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of the homes that crumbled had a lot in common: They housed the poor, were old and did not meet building standards in the earthquake-prone country.
Also Read: Strong earthquake kills at least 14 in Ecuador, 1 in Peru
The earthquake centered just off the Pacific Coast, about 50 miles (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 health care centers were damaged.
The office of Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso reported that 12 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and two in the highlands state of Azuay.
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-story home collapsed before people could evacuate, a pier gave way and a building’s walls cracked, trapping an unknown number of people.
Quito-based architect Germán Narváez said the houses most affected during earthquakes are those with deficient construction and that lack foundation, structure and technical design. He added that the houses are also old and built with materials such as adobe, which was once frequently used in Andean communities.
“At critical moments of seismic movements, they tend to collapse,” he said.
Ecuador is particularly prone to earthquakes. In 2016, a quake centered farther north on the Pacific Coast in a more sparsely populated area 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 Otárola said a 4-year-old girl died from head trauma she suffered in the collapse of her home in the Tumbes region, on the border with Ecuador.
Peruvian authorities also reported that four homes were destroyed and the old walls of an Army barracks collapsed in Tumbes.
Saturday’s earthquake destroyed the home of Dolores Vaca in Machala. The moment she felt the first jolt, she said, she ran out into the street while her husband managed to drag their daughter out. Then, “everything fell apart, the house flattened, everything was lost,” she said.
Vaca’s neighbors were not as lucky. She said five died when the house next to hers collapsed.
In Guayaquil, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and homes, as well as some collapsed walls. Videos shared on social media show people gathered on the streets of Guayaquil, which anchors a metro area of over 3 million people, and nearby communities.
One video posted online showed three anchors of a show dart from their studio desk as the set shook. They initially tried to shake it off as a minor quake but soon fled off camera. One anchor indicated the show would go on a commercial break, while another repeated, “My God, my God.”
A report from Ecuador’s Adverse Events Monitoring Directorate ruled out a tsunami threat.
Machala student Katherine Cruz said her home shook so badly that she could not even get up to leave her room and flee to the street.
“It was horrible. I had never felt anything like this in my life,” she said.