Tag: pedernales

Coffins pile up in Ecuador stadium-turned-morgue

by Santiago Piedra Silva Pedernales, Ecuador (AFP) — A hodgepodge of donated coffins in various shapes, sizes and colors is piled in a corner of the football stadium in the Ecuadoran resort town of Pedernales. The stadium has taken on an eerie new identity as a morgue in the aftermath of the country’s devastating earthquake, which killed more than 500 people. Medical examiners in white uniforms criss-cross the makeshift facility, working to identify decomposing bodies pulled […]

Hopes dim for Ecuador quake survivors; death toll hits 443

(Reuters) PEDERNALES/CANOA, Ecuador Rescuers in Ecuador were losing hope of finding more survivors on Tuesday from an earthquake which killed more than 400 people and dealt a shattering blow to the South American OPEC nation’s already fragile economy. Praying for miracles, distraught family members beseeched rescue teams to find missing loved ones as they used dogs, bare hands and excavators to hunt through debris of flattened homes, hotels and stores in the hardest-hit Pacific coastal […]