QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — At least nine people died and another 15 were injured when a bus veered off the road and crashed into a ravine in Ecuador, emergency services said on Monday. The bus plunged into the 200 meter (220 yards) deep ravine in the southern Chimborazo province. Authorities did not say how many people were onboard the bus that had left the port city of Guayaquil and was heading towards Ambato in the […]
Tag: Ecuador
More than 100 dead in Ecuador’s latest prison violence
by Santiago PIEDRA SILVA GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) — The death toll from bloody clashes between rival gangs in an Ecuador prison has surpassed 100, with 52 more wounded, the government prison authority said Wednesday, as soldiers surrounded the facility — one of the country’s many overburdened and understaffed jails. Inmates went to war armed with guns and grenades on Tuesday at the Guayaquil prison complex: a clash between prisoners believed to be linked to Mexican […]
24 dead, 42 wounded in Ecuador prison fight: police
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — At least 24 prisoners were killed and another 42 wounded in a fight between armed inmates in an Ecuador prison in Guayaquil, police said Tuesday. The regional police commander, General Fausto Buenano, confirmed the toll via the official Twitter account of the government of Guayas province. When police entered prison wing number five, where most of the violence was reported, they found the bodies of prisoners shot to death or killed […]
Experts estimate endangered Galapagos pink iguana population at 211
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Scientific experts sent to the Galapagos Islands to count a critically endangered lizard species estimate there to be just 211 pink iguanas left, local authorities said Friday. Around 30 scientists and Galapagos park rangers took part in the expedition this month on Wolf Volcano, in the north of Isabela Island — the largest on the archipelago. “In the census, 53 iguanas were located and (temporarily) captured, 94 percent of which live […]
Floods and volcanic ashfall affect thousands in Ecuador
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Floods and ashfall from rumbling volcano Sangay have destroyed around 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of land and crops across Ecuador, affecting 350,000 people, the risk management service (SNGRE) said on Saturday. “We support the population affected by the fall of ash from Sangay and floods nationwide,” President Lenin Moreno tweeted. Moreno also announced the restructuring of “agricultural loans” and the dispatch of “teams to assist our farmers.” About 16,320 hectares […]
Endangered leatherback turtles hatch in Ecuador
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Nine leatherback turtles — the largest endangered marine turtle in the world — were hatched along the coast of Ecuador, the Ministry of Environment said Tuesday. The Dermochelys coriacea — the turtle’s scientific name — eggs were artificially incubated on the Punta Bikini beach, in the Manabi province in the southwest of the country. Rangers in the region had moved their nest after a harsh winter hit the coastal region. “This […]
Five guards freed after new Ecuador prison riot controlled
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Five prison guards held after a new riot broke out in an Ecuadorian prison were released Monday after the unrest was controlled without fatalities, a week after 79 inmates died in bloody gang warfare, the police said. “The servants of the security corps, who were held by the inmates, are safe and without damage to their physical integrity or health,” the prison authority said in a statement. “No deaths were recorded” […]
Ecuador upholds graft sentence for ex-president Correa
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — An Ecuador court on Monday confirmed ex-president Rafael Correa’s eight-year prison term for corruption, the attorney general said, blocking his vice-presidency run in next year’s elections. Correa, who has lived in Belgium since 2017 to evade the prison term, faces a lifetime disqualification from elections because Ecuador’s constitution bars those convicted of graft. The attorney general’s office said the National Court’s cassation court “by majority vote… rejects the appeals of cassation […]
Ecuador VP resigns just 8 months out from election
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador’s Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner announced his resignation on Tuesday, just eight months away from the 2021 general election. “It’s not an easy decision, the easiest would have been to stay, but I’ve never done what’s most comfortable for me,” said Sonnenholzner in an official statement published on television and radio. “I’ve always said I’m not here for the position, nor for the salary, nor for the honors, and that the […]
Giant tortoise Diego, a hero to his species, is home
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Diego the giant Galapagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, was put out to pasture Monday on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said. Diego was shipped out from the Galapagos National Park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to remote and uninhabited Espanola. “We are closing an important chapter” in the management of the park, said the minister […]
Back from the COVID dead in Ecuador, after hospital mixup
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — An Ecuadoran woman who was pronounced dead of COVID-19 suddenly woke up in the hospital, to the delight and relief of relatives who had identified someone else’s body as hers and had it cremated. Alba Maruri, 74, was hospitalized in March in Guayaquil, the Ecuadoran city hardest hit by the pandemic, with fever and trouble breathing. She lost consciousness for three weeks and was declared dead on March 27, relatives […]
Searching for dead brings extra agony in Ecuador’s largest city
by Xavier LETAMENDI Agence France Presse GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) — Darwin Castillo’s father died in Guayaquil during the coronavirus pandemic that has caused the Ecuadoran city’s health system to collapse. But when Castillo went to the overwhelmed morgue to recover him, he opened a body bag to find the person inside wasn’t his father. Two weeks have passed and he still hasn’t found the body. Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, is the capital of Guayas […]
