At least 15 people were killed and hundreds injured in the Ecuador and Peru earthquake

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A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador and Peru on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than a hundred others.

According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake struck eight kilometers north-northwest of Palau, located in the Guayas province of Ecuador.

NBC News reported that the quake was centered about 50 miles south of Guayaquil — which is about 170 miles southwest of Eduardo’s capital, Quito, and has a population of more than 3 million in the metropolitan area.

The earthquake killed 14 in Ecuador and another person in Peru, authorities reported, as it struck the country’s northern border, and injured at least 126 people.

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Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso told reporters that the quake “undoubtedly caused concern among the population,” according to NBC News. The site also reported that Laso’s office said in a statement that 12 of the victims died in the coastal province of El Oro and two in the highland state of Azuay.

According to NBC News, Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otarola said a 4-year-old girl died from head trauma sustained from the collapse of her home in Tumbes in the northwestern coastal region of Peru bordering Ecuador.

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Solange Coyago, a visitor who felt the quake while inside an apartment in Cuenca, Ecuador, told NBC News, “I was really scared. Everyone was out in the streets… [it] It was a really difficult moment.”

“Everything was going blind in my mind. I started shaking,” she continued, explaining that she had a panic attack when the earthquake struck.

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NBC News also reported that authorities reported collapsed walls and cracks in buildings and homes in Guayaquil, and ordered the closure of three tunnels to traffic. A dock has reportedly sunk in the southwestern Ecuadorian city of Machala.

Quiago told NBC News that the apartment she was in didn’t suffer much damage, but some of it partially collapsed.

“The cops say please don’t wander around here because it’s going to go down every moment,” Koyago said. “At the moment, the streets are closed, some of them are closed.”

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