A four-year-old white Labrador called Dayko has been hailed as a hero after rescuing seven people from the aftermath of the Ecuador earthquake - before dying from exhaustion.

Dayko, a rescue dog for the Ibara fire service, died last Friday, having spent the previous days searching for survivors in the rubble left by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake which hit Ecuador last week.

According to a post on Ibara fire service's Facebook page the cause of death was "massive coronary myocardial infarction and acute respiratory failure." He had been working as a rescue dog for three and a half years.