ZCZC
BFF-23
ECUADOR-QUAKE
Earthquake with 7.5 magnitude hits Ecuador
QUITO, Feb 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 hit
Ecuador Friday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major
damage.
The quake struck before dawn in Ecuador’s eastern Amazon region 17
kilometers (10 miles) from the town of Montalvo near the border with Peru,
the US Geological Survey said.
It hit at a depth of 132 kilometers. Most major earthquakes in South
America are at shallow depths of 70 kilometers or less, the USGS said.
There were two aftershocks, one in the same area and with a magnitude of
just over 6.0, Ecuador’s Geophysics Institute said. It gave the same 7.5
magnitude for the big quake.
“We have no reports of injuries so far, just some broken windows,” said
Tarcisio Ojeda, mayor of the town of Macas, in Morona Santiago province where
the quake hit.
Emergency rescue teams were activated.
The other aftershock hit the Pacific coast region of Guayas but it did not
do any harm either, President Lenin Moreno said on Twitter.
None of three tremors had the right features to trigger a tsunami alert,
the Navy’s Oceanographic Institute said.
In 2016 a quake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit the western provinces of Manabi
and Esmeraldas, killing 673 people and causing an estimated $3 billion in
damage.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1814 hrs