Death toll from Ecuador earthquake tops 650

Associated Press


QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador's government says the death toll from last week's devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake has risen to 654 with another 58 people missing.

The website of the secretariat for risk management said Saturday that 113 people had been rescued alive following the quake that flattened coastal towns and more than 25,000 people remained in shelters.

The death toll from Ecuador's quake has surpassed that of Peru's 2007 temblor, making it the deadliest quake in South America since one in Colombia in 1999 killed more than 1,000 people.

Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Ecuador since the Saturday night quake.

President Rafael Correa has said the quake caused $3 billion in damage and warned that the reconstruction effort will take years. His administration is temporarily raising taxes to fund the recovery.

-- (c) Associated Press 2016-04-24

An inflammatory and distasteful post has been removed.

Right. Raise taxes on people in a situation like this. Is there no limit to stupidity? This isn't a first world country where everything is insured and can get back to biz quickly.

There was already a housing shortage in Ecuador with rents climbing above the ability of many locals to pay. Part of that had to do with expats who are now discouraged from moving there for that reason. Now where are people going to live?

My heart goes out to these people who are good people who already had next to nothing...

These ring of fire tragedies are just awful. RIP to these victims.

This should remind us of just how fragile/precarious our world really is, and prompt us to be vigilant as these catastrophes have actually been the norm for history, rather than the exception our limited purview suggests.