Ecuador Quakes May Have Killed 2,000, Official Says After Survey

As many as 2,000 people may have been killed in northern Ecuador in an earthquake and series of aftershocks that caused flooding and deadly mud slides last week, Prefect Jorge Gonzalez of Napo province said Thursday.

Gonzalez, the chief administrator of the most seriously affected province, said he based his estimate on aerial inspection of the area. He reported that several villages were wiped out when544501618streets, splintering homes and entombing people in debris as high as rooftops.

The International Red Cross has said that 300 people were killed and 4,000 are missing. But Gonzalez asserted at a Thursday news conference that about 5,000 people were unaccounted for.

No Official Toll

This country’s government has not released an official death toll. It says that 75,000 people have been driven from their homes.

The quakes rumbled along the nation’s 2-mile-high Andean spine a week ago, affecting an area from the Colombian border to Riobamba, 95 miles south of Quito. The hardest-hit area was a 640-square-mile zone surrounding the volcano El Reventador, 40 miles northeast of Quito. The region is home to about 100,000 people, Gonzalez said.

Floods and avalanches caused by the quakes swept away homes and interrupted transportation and communication, delaying word about the magnitude of the tragedy for several days, Gonzalez said. He added that the final death toll “may never be known.”

‘Terrible Drama’

“The human drama is terrible,” he said. “There are homes buried or submerged in water, there are bodies in the mud and the rivers are contaminated with oil.”

Mud slides destroyed a 30-mile stretch of the nation’s main oil pipeline, halting oil exports and forcing Ecuador to stop payments for the rest of this year on its $8.2 billion foreign debt.

On Thursday, Venezuela said it has tentatively agreed to supply Ecuador’s customers with oil until the pipeline is repaired, an estimated five months from now. Officials said that details of the plan were still being negotiated.

Meanwhile, the shattered pipeline also caused environmental damage, spilling oil into rivers near Baeza, 40 miles southeast of Quito.

‘Contaminated Rivers’

“Now there are rivers contaminated with petroleum, and dead fish and domesticated animals are floating in the waters,” Gonzalez said.

Some of the worst quake damage, he said, occurred in the villages of Quijo and Gonzalo Pizarro, where all 400 residents disappeared after a muddy wall of water slammed into the towns.

“In the village of Playas de Alto Coca, where 300 people lived, only 50 people have been rescued” from a sea of mud, he said.

Gonzalez appealed to the international community to maintain an aircraft bridge between Quito and the devastated areas of Napo province to fly in food and supplies.

The Spanish Red Cross said that $20,000 worth of supplies were en route to Ecuador on Thursday, while World Vision, a Christian relief agency, said that it was donating $10,000 worth of emergency supplies.

Heavy Loss Looms

Before Venezuela’s announcement Thursday, Oswaldo Davila, executive secretary of Ecuador’s National Development Council, said this country stands to lose $1 billion due to the cutoff of oil exports, the cost of repairs to the pipeline, construction of a temporary pipeline and the import of emergency fuel.

Ecuador has appealed to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to temporarily increase its production quota nearly 50%, to 310,000 barrels. The government said it will need the additional production to pay back oil-producing nations that temporarily take over its oil obligations.