Fearful residents stream into streets of the capital Quito while major city of Guayaquil is among places worst hit

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Ecuador’s Pacific coast has been struck by the country’s strongest earthquake in decades, a 7.8-magnitude tremor killing at least 77 people, flattening buildings and damaging roads near the epicentre, as well as in the country’s largest city of Guayaquil.

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President Rafael Correa declared a national emergency and urged the country’s 16 million people to stay calm. More than 570 people are believed to have been injured in the quake.

“Our infinite love to the families of the dead,” he said on Twitter, as he cut short a trip to Italy to return home.

The government had recommended residents leave coastal areas after concerns about rising tides following the quake, but fears of hazardous waves have eased and locals were told they could return home. Earlier, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of less than 0.3 metres above the tide level were possible along the coasts of Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Peru.

But by 0256 GMT the centre said the “tsunami threat from this earthquake has now mostly passed”.

About 10,000 troops have been deployed to the coastal areas, with 3,500 extra national police officers sent to the towns of Manabí, Esmeraldas and Guayas y Santa Elena, and 500 firefighters sent to Manabi and Pedernales. Five shelters have been set up for those evacuated from their homes.

Alarmed residents streamed into the streets of the capital, Quito, hundreds of kilometres away, and other towns across Ecuador.

The government said the death toll was likely to rise and damage was “serious”, especially in the western coastal areas nearest the quake and in Guayaquil.

The vice-president, Jorge Glas, said it was the strongest quake to hit Ecuador since 1979. “We continue to receive information,” he said, adding that 16 people had died in the city of Poroviejo, 10 in Manta and others in the province of Guayas.

The country’s Geophysics Institute in a bulletin described “considerable damage” in the area of the epicentre and in Guayaquil, without providing further details.

It said the earthquake struck at about 8pm local time at a depth of 12.4 miles (20km). At least 36 aftershocks have followed, one as strong as six on the Richter scale, and residents have been warned to brace themselves for even stronger aftershocks in the coming hours.

A powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake also hit the Pacific island of Tonga, south-east of the capital, Nuku’alofa, in the early evening. The United States Geological Survey said the quake’s epicentre was 172.12 miles (277km) away at a depth of 41 miles.

Pictures shared on social media showed a crumbling bridge in Guayaquil and a collapsed tower at an airport in the city of Manta that injured an air traffic control worker and a security guard.

“I was in my house watching a movie and everything started to shake. I ran out into the street and now I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Lorena Cazares, 36, a telecommunications worker in Quito.

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Parts of the capital were left without power or telephone service, with many communicating only via WhatsApp. Photos showed cracks in the walls of shopping centres. The capital’s municipal government later said power had been restored and there were no reports of casualties.

“There are villages that are totally devastated,” said Gabriel AlcÃ­var, mayor of the city of Pedernales in the hard-hit province of Manabi, in a radio interview. “What happened here in Pedernales is catastrophic.”

AlcÃ­var called for more help from authorities to send earth-moving machines and emergency rescue workers. “This wasn’t just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town,” he said.

State officials said the Opec nation’s oil production was not affected by the quake but that the principal refinery of Esmeraldas, located near the epicentre, had been halted as a precaution.

Neighbouring Peru issued a tsunami alert for the north of the country following the quake.

Across the Pacific in Japan, a 7.3-magnitude tremor struck Kumamoto province early on Saturday, killing at least 32 people, injuring about 1,000, and causing widespread damage, in the second major quake to hit the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours. The first, late on Thursday, killed nine.