Powerful 7.8 Earthquake Rocks Ecuador鈥檚 Coast -- Hundreds Are Dead
We hope the expats in the community are ok too.
Does anyone know if expats were checked on (apart here)?
Here in Montreal Canada, it is unclear if the earthquake affected city of the Quito.
"A mother and her 12-year-old son from Quebec, Canada have been identified as the two Canadians who were among the hundreds of people killed in a massive earthquake in Ecuador Saturday night."
On another note, there are not as many usual smiles in Quito, the only one I've seen in two days is from our concierge when I asked him if the building was Earthquake-Resistant, to which he replied "no", with a soft smile. Oh well.
Thank you for that info. It was very disturbing to hear about the looting and thieves stopping aid trucks attempting to provide staples to those in need. Sorry, I know I'm repeating myself.聽 I hope this is not a common phenomenon.聽 May assistance reach all of those folks in need. We will reach out. God bless.
PS
The closure of many entertainment venues including cinemas, pubs, nightclubs has been extended until Saturday April 23rd. Source El Comercio
PS
Magnitude Strength: Instituto Geof铆sico (Twitter)
Be safe and God Bless.
Dealing with that is another matter because lives and routines are disrupted.聽
crowdpub wrote:Bahia Caraquez one of the most idyllic locations on the coast of Ecuador and very popular with expats is being evacuated as of late last night. There were several large aftershocks of 6.0 and 5.8聽 Unconfirmed reports that center may be in rubble. Again that is unconfirmed by authority sources.
I saw a 10 minute video of Bahia de Caraquez after the big earthquake, and although there was considerable damage, I highly doubt that that center has turned to rubble. The prez was actually there last night when the successive aftershocks occurred and he tweeted about it.
Video of Bahia de Caraquez in aftermath of Saurday's 7.8 earthquake:
Pubs, nightclubs, and discos are closed/open at the discretion of the establishment's management.
We simply can't have unconfirmed "reports" from unstated sources on this earthquake thread.聽 AKA rumors.
This thread is now being closely monitored for such and the Home Office will be alerted to posts containing rumors about supposed death and destruction in any named communities.
cccmedia in Quito
This weekend, the Cuenca Highlife website quotes a national-police captain in Bah铆a as saying that 鈥渨ith each earthquake, more houses are falling down.鈥
The captain is correctly referring to the hundreds of so-called aftershocks as 鈥渆arthquakes.鈥澛 He said some of the ones that have hit Bah铆a have been 鈥渟trong鈥 and 鈥渇rightening.鈥
Ecuadorian-army trucks offered to evacuate Bah铆a residents on Wednesday night after three 6.0-plus quakes struck the city within hours.
An official of Ecuador鈥檚 Geophysical Institute says the aftershocks or quakes will persist for weeks, maybe months, decreasing in their intensity over time.
Source: on the site鈥檚 current welcome page
Seventy percent of the buildings in Pedernales, Ecuador (population 20,000 per Wikipedia) were destroyed in the April 16th earthquake.聽 Pedernales is 40 miles from the epicenter.
An even higher percentage of buildings were destroyed in other coastal towns.
Portoviejo is the capital of devastated Manab铆 province, and is about half an hour鈥檚 drive inland from the Pacific coast.聽 According to Wikipedia, it鈥檚 pre-quake population was about 250,000, making it the sixth largest city in Ecuador.聽 It is about 120 miles from the epicenter.
According to the New Yorker magazine, the mayor of Portoviejo says that over 100 residents of the city were killed by the earthquake.
蝉辞耻谤肠别:听
12,492 injured
10,000 buildings destroyed or so severely damaged that they are uninhabitable
----
The number of missing persons from the quake varies from source to source and there is no reliable number at present.
-----
According to the Pan American Health Organization, 20,000 people in Ecuador are living in shelters and thousands more are sleeping outside their homes.
聽 聽 The above numbers were posted at
The good news is Ecuador had only had 20 aftershocks the past 24hrs from the area of the big earthquake according to Instituto Geofiscio, and that is indeed good news considering we鈥檝e been averaging around 100+ per day prior to today. Additionally, most of them are magnitude 3 or 4 and fairly insignificant or not enough to feel in Quito.
cccmedia wrote:An official of Ecuador鈥檚 Geophysical Institute says the aftershocks or quakes will persist for weeks, maybe months, decreasing in their intensity over time.
I've been reading about this. I believe they call it exponential decline/exponential decay. The prez the other day on twitter said that an expert from Instituto Geofiscio said we can expect as many as ten magnitude 6 aftershocks. So far we've had about four or five magnitude 6 aftershocks. Hopefully the intensity continues to decline over time without us having to endure M 6 aftershocks.
vsimple wrote:Quito very much remains subdued, Mariscal was limited... same with popular fast food joints....
All activity suddenly stopped at Megamtaxi Six on Saturday evening as the Ecuadorian national hymn came over the loudspeaker.聽 For several minutes, the shoppers and employees observed a moment of reflection in honoring the memory of the fallen.
cccmedia in Quito
It鈥檚 been 4 days straight now without frightening aftershocks. It feels great, we live on the 10th floor of a high-rise, so you can imagine the swaying from up there. My neighbors are not as traumatized, neither am I as I鈥檓 not feeling the building/floor moving when it鈥檚 not moving.
Hope it continues this way.
There鈥檚 nothing better than a mug of coffee in the morning in Quito after an aftershock-free night.
Source of aftershock count and magnitude: Instituto Geofisico - Twitter
Rafael Correa tweeted that the Ecuadorian government will prosecute general contractors whose crews performed substandard construction work.聽 He said more stringent construction standards will be established before re-building proceeds.
The government says sand from nearby beaches was mixed with concrete in the construction of some buildings.聽 In some cases, this allegedly caused the decomposition of the concrete and related destruction of steel rebar.
El Presidente announced he will ask Ecuador鈥檚 attorney general to investigate construction perpetrators.聽 As stated earlier on this thread, the government says about 10,000 buildings collapsed in the April 16 earthquake and aftershocks or were damaged too much to be habitable.
Source:
DISASTER RELIEF : FIRST HAND OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
If you're looking for an ideal country to retire to (cheap, relatively safe, no religious terrorism, nice people, wonderful variety of geography, climates, things to see and do) Ecuador is just about the best there is.
Keep well, Russell
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