QUITO, Ecuador — A robust earthquake shook southern Ecuador and northern Peru on Saturday, killing no less than a dozen individuals, trapping others below rubble, and sending rescue groups out into streets affected by particles and fallen energy strains.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of about 6.8 that was centered simply off the Pacific Coast, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second-largest metropolis.

Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso in a televised tackle to the nation stated the earthquake killed 12 individuals.

One sufferer was a passenger in a automobile crushed by rubble from a home within the Andean group of Cuenca, in accordance with the Danger Administration Secretariat, the South American nation’s emergency response company.

Within the coastal state of El Oro, three individuals died and several other have been trapped below rubble, the company reported. Locally of Machala, a two-story residence collapsed earlier than individuals might evacuate, a pier gave means and a constructing’s partitions cracked, trapping an unknown variety of individuals.

The company stated firefighters labored to rescue individuals whereas the Nationwide Police assessed injury, their work made harder by downed strains that interrupted phone and electrical energy service.

In Guayaquil, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and houses, in addition to some collapsed partitions. Authorities ordered the closure of three vehicular tunnels in Guayaquil, which anchors a metro space of over 3 million individuals.

Movies shared on social media present individuals gathered on the streets of Guayaquil and close by communities. Individuals reported objects falling inside their houses.

One video posted on-line confirmed three anchors of a present dart from their studio desk because the set shook. They initially tried to shake it off as a minor quake however quickly fled off digicam. One anchor indicated the present would go on a industrial break, whereas one other repeated, “My God, my God.”

A report from Ecuador’s Adversarial Occasions Monitoring Directorate dominated out a tsunami menace.

The earthquake was additionally felt in Peru, from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast. No deaths or accidents have been instantly reported. Within the northern area of Tumbes, the outdated partitions of an Military barracks collapsed, authorities stated.

Ecuador is especially vulnerable to earthquakes. In 2016, a quake centered farther north on the Pacific Coast in a extra sparsely populated space of the nation killed greater than 600 individuals.

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Related Press writers Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, and Franklin Briceño in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.