Ecuador earthquake: Death toll jumps to 272

Rescue crews searched desperately through rubble for survivors of a magnitude-7.8 earthquake that struck coastal Ecuador.

The death toll has soared to 272, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said Sunday evening. That number is expected to rise as rescue teams dig through the rubble, he said.

Earlier that day, Vice President Jorge Glas had estimated that at least 2,527 people were injured.

The hardest-hit area was the coastal Manabi Province, where about 200 people died, said Ricardo Peñaherrera of Ecuador’s national emergency management office.

The cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Pedernales, a tourist destination, saw the most devastation but damage was widespread throughout the country.

‘The first hours are crucial,’ Correa said. ‘We’re finding signs of life in the rubble. We’re giving this priority. After, we’ll work to find and recover bodies.’

People looking for family and friends frantically dug with their hands and tools until excavation equipment arrived.

Rescue workers search the rubble of a collapsed building for victims in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Sunday, April 17. A magnitude-7.8 quake struck off Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, April 16, flattening buildings and buckling highways. It’s the deadliest quake to strike the South American country in decades.

‘It was the worst experience of my life,’ survivor Jose Meregildo said Sunday about the tremors that violently shook his house in Guayaquil, 300 miles away from the quake’s epicenter.

‘Everybody in my neighborhood was screaming saying it was going to be the end of the world.’

The earthquake hit Saturday around 7 p.m. while people were going about their evening.

The tremors buckled overpasses trapping drivers. A shopping mall partially collapsed on customers and several buildings have been flattened with their content spilled into the streets.

All six coastal provinces - Guayas, Manabi, Santo Domingo, Los Rios, Esmeraldas and Galapagos - are in state of emergencies.

People left their homes and wandered around, some sleeping in the streets.

‘I found my house like this,’ said Nely Intriago, standing in front of a pile of rubble. ‘What am I going to do? Cry, that’s what. Now we are on the street with nothing.’