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by Santiago PIEDRA SILVA à Quito Agence France Presse GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador’s economic capital Guayaquil is reeling from the most aggressive outbreak of COVID-19 in Latin America after the pandemic hit the city “like a bomb,” its mayor said. Cynthia Viteri has emerged from her own bout with the virus to battle the worst crisis the port city of nearly 3 million people has known in modern times. “There is no space […]
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador said police have removed almost 800 bodies in recent weeks from homes in Guayaquil, the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak after the disease overwhelmed emergency services, hospitals, and funeral parlors. Mortuary workers in the Pacific port city have been unable to cope with a backlog, with residents posting videos on social media showing abandoned bodies in the streets. “The number we have collected with the task force from people’s […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Former Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for corruption during his 10-year term in office, the attorney general’s office said Tuesday. Correa — who was president from 2007-17 but now lives in exile in Belgium, where his wife was born — was one of 18 people convicted of bribery, the office said on Twitter. Correa, one of the feistiest characters in Latin American politics, […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador’s vice president Otto Sonnenholzner has apologized after scores of bodies were left on the streets of Guayaquil as the coronavirus ravages the horror-struck port city. Residents had published videos on social media showing abandoned bodies in the streets in the Latin American city worst hit by the pandemic. Authorities collected at least 150 corpses from streets and homes earlier this week, but did not confirm how many of the […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador marked its highest daily increase in deaths and new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, with the total reaching 14 dead and 789 infected, authorities said. The number of fatalities rose from seven late Saturday to 14 on Sunday morning, while infections surged from 532 to 789, according to the country’s National Risk and Emergency Management Service. Ecuador had 166 people infected with the COVID-19 illness on Friday. It is the […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — A scientific expedition to the Galapagos Islands has discovered a tortoise with a “strong” genetic link to a presumed-extinct subspecies made famous by the popular Lonesome George, national park officials said Friday. George, the last known member of the Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii Pinta tortoise species, died in 2012 in captivity aged over 100 after refusing to provide any offspring. The Galapagos National Parks (PNG) said the expedition had discovered a young, […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — A volcano erupted on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos, Ecuadorian authorities said, spewing lava on the ecologically sensitive environment. La Cumbre volcano on Fernandina island, one of the youngest in the archipelago, began erupting Sunday evening, Galapagos National Park (PNG) officials said in a statement. The 1,467 meter high (4,813 feet) volcano has a crack along its south-eastern flank and “a lava flow descends to the coast”, PNG added. The […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — A concrete wall collapsed and crushed several vehicles in southern Ecuador early Wednesday, killing at least five people, four of them children, emergency services said. “A total of four injured and five dead,” the emergency services said in a statement after rescue workers recovered the bodies from the rubble in Las Lomas, in the southern province of Azuay. Authorities said the dead were two females, aged 37 and seven, and three […]
by Santiago PIEDRA SILVA QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador began counting the cost Monday of 12 days of indigenous fury against fuel hikes that left seven protesters dead and severely dented President Lenin Moreno’s austerity program. Moreno and indigenous leaders reached an agreement Sunday after the president pledged to withdraw subsidy cuts, known as Decree 883, that had more than doubled fuel prices. The cuts were part of an austerity package to obtain a $4.2 […]
by Katell ABIVEN / Hector Velasco QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — A first meeting between Ecuador’s president and indigenous leaders will take place on Sunday, the United Nations said, after Lenin Moreno ordered a curfew and military control in the capital to try to quell deadly, anti-austerity protests. The rolling demonstrations have left six people dead and nearly 2,100 wounded or detained, according to authorities, with protesters on Saturday targeting a television station and a newspaper […]
by Carlos MANDUJANO LIMA, PERU (AFP) — A powerful 8.0-earthquake struck northern Peru in the early hours of Sunday, toppling houses, blocking roads and knocking out power to some localities. One person was killed and 18 others injured as the shockwave extended into neighboring Ecuador, authorities said. “There are many old houses that have collapsed after this strong earthquake,” said Hugo Araujo, the mayor of Yurimaguas, a town near the epicenter. The quake hit in […]
A strong 8.0-earthquake struck northern Peru in the early hours of Sunday, sending residents fleeing their homes and cutting off power to at least one town, with the impact felt as far afield as neighboring Ecuador. There were no immediate reports of injuries following the quake which the US Geological Survey said struck at a depth of 110 kilometers (68 miles). The quake hit t 0741 GMT about 75 kilometers southeast of the town of […]
