MANTA, Ecuador – Rescuers are in a race against time to find survivors from a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake as the death toll from Ecuador’s strongest earthquake in decades has risen above 400.
On Monday, teams from Ecuador and neighboring countries fanned out across the country’s Pacific coastline to look for the dozens of people still missing.
In the port city of Manta, a group of about 50 rescuers working with sniffer dogs, hydraulic jacks and a drill managed to free eight people trapped for more than 32 hours in the rubble of a shopping center that was flattened by Saturday night’s quake.
The first rescue took place before dawn, when a woman was pulled head first from a nearly 2-foot (70-centimeter) hole cut through concrete and steel. Firefighters applauded as she emerged from the debris, disoriented, caked in dust and complaining of pain but otherwise in good health.
Another uplifting scene played out in nearby Portoviejo, where a cellphone call to a relative from under the debris of a collapsed hotel led searchers to Pablo Cordova, the hotel’s administrator. Once he was gingerly removed, he was immobilized and hauled away on a stretcher, his hands waving in the air in a sign of appreciation to cheering onlookers.