Tag Archives: Death

113 die in four shipwrecks between Libya and Italy

Surviving immigrants lie on the deck of the Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoretti in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour

GENEVA (Reuters) – An estimated 113 people died in four shipwrecks between Libya and Italy at the weekend as the crossing becomes the preferred sea route for migrants to Europe, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

With the closing of land routes in the Balkans and a recent deal under which Greece sends migrants back to Turkey, Italian officials have said they expect more people to try to make this longer and much more dangerous crossing from Libya.

In one of four incidents, an Italian merchant ship rescued 26 people off the coast of Libya in rough seas and others were feared missing, Italy’s Coast Guard said on Saturday.

IOM, citing survivor testimony, said 84 people appeared to be missing from that wreck, while at least 29 drowned in two other attempted crossings in rubber dinghies of the Channel of Sicily. It was still investigating a fourth incident.

“Just since Friday we know of 4 shipwrecks and 113 people killed, just off Libya,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman said.

“It is becoming the preferred route. So therefore we are very mindful of what could be coming in the next few months,” Millman told a news briefing.

Migrants from West Africa, especially Nigerians, and the Horn of Africa dominate the Libya-Italy route, which Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis are not taking for now, Millman added.

In all, 1,357 migrants and refugees perished at sea during the first four months of the year, mostly along the Central Mediterranean route, against 1,733 during the period in 2015, the agency said.

Since January, 28,593 migrants and refugees have arrived by sea in Italy, while 154,862 have landed in Greece, the IOM said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Bombs in Baghdad kill 14, including some Shi’ite pilgrims

Car bomb attack in Baghdad May 2, 2016

By Kareem Raheem

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Three bombs went off in and around Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 14 people, including Shi’ite Muslim worshippers conducting an annual pilgrimage inside the capital, police and medical sources said.

The largest blast, which Islamic State said it was behind, came from a parked car bomb in the Saydiya district of southern Baghdad that killed 11 and wounded 30, the sources said.

At least a few of the casualties were pilgrims passing through the area on their way to the shrine of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a great-grandson of Prophet Mohammad who died in the 8th century.

Explosives planted on the ground in Tarmiya, 25 km (15 miles) north of Baghdad, killed two and wounded six, while a roadside bomb in Khalisa, a town 30 km (20 miles) south of the city, left one dead and two wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the smaller attacks.

Islamic State militants fighting Iraqi forces in the north and west regularly target security personnel and Shi’ite civilians whom they consider apostates.

The group said in an online statement distributed by supporters that a suicide bomber had targeted pilgrims in the Dora neighborhood adjacent to Saydiya. It said the attack was part of an offensive launched recently in apparent revenge for the killing of a senior leader.

Islamic State’s al Qaeda predecessor was blamed in the past for such attacks on Shi’ite pilgrims, including blasts in 2012 that left 70 people dead nationwide.

Security has gradually improved in Baghdad, which was the target of daily bombings a decade ago, but there has been a string of blasts in recent days, including a suicide attack on Saturday that killed at least 19 people.

Monday’s blasts come as Iraq struggles to emerge from a political crisis over reforming its governing system which saw protesters hold an unprecedented sit-in over the weekend in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Former Auschwitz guard apologizes at trial; says it was ‘nightmare’

Defendant Hanning, a 94-year-old former guard at Auschwitz death camp, arrives for the continuation of his trial in Detmold

By Elke Ahlswede

DETMOLD, Germany (Reuters) – A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard on trial in Germany apologized in court to victims on Friday, telling them he regretted being part of a “criminal organization” that had killed so many people and caused such suffering.

“I’m ashamed that I knowingly let injustice happen and did nothing to oppose it”, said Reinhold Hanning, a former Nazi SS officer, seated in a wheelchair in the court in Detmold.

Hanning is charged with being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people.

Holocaust survivors, who detailed their horrific experiences at the trial which opened in February, have pleaded with the accused to break his silence in what could be one of the last Holocaust court cases in Germany.

Hanning finally broke the silence he kept over the course of 12 hearings, each limited to two hours due to his old age.

Reading in a firm voice from a paper he took out of his gray suit pocket, he said: “I want to tell you that I deeply regret having been part of a criminal organization that is responsible for the death of many innocent people, for the destruction of countless families, for misery, torment and suffering on the side of the victims and their relatives”.

“I have remained silent for a long time, I have remained silent all of my life,” he added.

Just before, his lawyer, Johannes Salmen, had given a detailed account of the defendant’s view of his life and particularly his time in Auschwitz.

In this 22-page long declaration, Hanning admitted having known about mass murder in the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

“I’ve tried to repress this period for my whole life. Auschwitz was a nightmare, I wish I had never been there,” the lawyer cited Hanning as saying.

The accused was sent there after being wounded in battle and his request to rejoin his comrades on the front had been rejected twice, he said.

“I accept his apology but I can’t forgive him,” said Leon Schwarzbaum, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor and co-plaintiff.

She said Hanning should have recounted everything that happened in Auschwitz and “what he took part in”.

Although Hanning is not charged with having been directly involved in any killings at the camp, prosecutors accuse him of facilitating the slaughter in his capacity as a guard at the camp where 1.2 million people, most of them Jews, were killed.

A precedent for such charges was set in 2011, when death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk was convicted.

Accused by the prosecutor’s office in Dortmund as well as by 40 joint plaintiffs from Hungary, Israel, Canada, Britain, the United States and Germany, Hanning is said to have joined the SS forces voluntarily at the age of 18 in 1940.

Hanning on Friday said however that his stepmother, a member of the Nazi-party, urged him to join.

A verdict is expected on May 27.

Germany is holding what are likely to be its last trials linked to the Holocaust, in which more than six million people, mostly Jews, were killed by the Nazis.

In addition to Hanning, one other man and one woman in their 90s are accused of being accessories to the murder of hundreds of thousands of people at Auschwitz.

A third man who was a member of the Nazi SS guard team at Auschwitz died at the age of 93 this month, days before his trial was due to start.

(Writing by Elke Ahlswede and Joseph Nasr; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Air strikes on Aleppo hospital kill 27, U.N. declares catastrophe

A civil defence member carries a child that survived from under the rubble at a site hit by airstrikes in the

By Lisa Barrington and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Air strikes destroyed a hospital and killed dozens of people in rebel-held areas of Syria’s Aleppo including children and doctors, and the United Nations called on Moscow and Washington to salvage a “barely-alive” cease-fire.

The city of Aleppo is at the epicenter of a military escalation that has undermined peace talks in Geneva to end the five-year-old war and U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura appealed to the presidents of the United States and Russia to intervene.

Six days of air strikes and rebel shelling in Aleppo, which is split between government forces and rebels, have killed some 200 people in the city, two-thirds of them on the opposition side, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

“The catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24-48 hours” has jeopardized the aid lifeline that delivers supplies to millions of Syrians, said Jan Egeland, chairman of the U.N. humanitarian task force. “I could not in any way express how high the stakes are for the next hours and days.”

The Geneva talks aim to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, allowed for the rise of Islamic State and drawn in regional and major powers but the negotiations have all but failed and a truce to allow them to take place has collapsed.

Winding up the Geneva talks, de Mistura said he aimed to resume them in May, but gave no date.

“Wherever you are, you hear explosions of mortars, shelling and planes flying over,” Valter Gros, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross Aleppo office, said.

“There is no neighborhood of the city that hasn’t been hit. People are living on the edge. Everyone here fears for their lives and nobody knows what is coming next,” he said.

A Syrian military source said government planes had not been in areas where air raids were reported. Syria’s army denied reports that the Syrian air force targeted the hospital.

The Russian defense ministry, whose air strikes have swung the war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, could not immediately be reached for comment. Russia has previously denied hitting civilian targets in Syria where it launched air raids late last year to bolster its ally.

The British-based Observatory said 31 people were killed as a result of air strikes on several areas of opposition-held Aleppo on Thursday. In addition, it said at least 27 people were killed in the air strike on the hospital that was struck late on Wednesday. Rescue workers put the toll higher.

In government-held areas, rebel mortar shelling killed at least 14 people, the Observatory and Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.

“WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?”

The bombed al-Quds hospital was supported by international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which said it was destroyed after being hit by a direct air strike that killed at least three doctors.

“This devastating attack has destroyed a vital hospital in Aleppo, and the main referral center for pediatric care in the area,” said Muskilda Zancada, MSF head of mission, Syria. “Where is the outrage among those with the power and obligation to stop this carnage?”

ICRC spokesman Ewan Watson told Reuters in Geneva: “It is unacceptable, any attack on hospitals is a war crime. But it is up to an investigator and it is for a court to take that decision on whether it is a war crime or not.”

Peace talks, which have been deeply divided on the future of Assad, looked to be over last week when the opposition walked out, saying the Syrian government was stalling for time to advance on the ground and calling for implementation of a U.N. resolution requiring full humanitarian access to besieged areas.

De Mistura voiced deep concern at the truce unraveling in Aleppo and at least three other places, but also said he saw some narrowing of positions between the government and opposition visions of political transition.

“Hence my appeal for a U.S.-Russian urgent initiative at the highest level, because the legacy of both President Obama and President Putin is linked to the success of what has been a unique initiative,” de Mistura told a news conference.

They should “be able to revitalize what they have created and which is still alive but barely”.

The United States and Russia must convene a ministerial meeting of major and regional powers who compose the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), he said.

Egeland said: “So the appeal of Staffan de Mistura to the United States, to Russia and to the other powers in the ISSG is ‘you did it once, you can do it again.'”

FUTURE OF ASSAD CRITICAL

Bashar Ja’afari, who led the government delegation, said on Tuesday the round had been “useful and constructive”. But he gave no sign of ceding to the opposition HNC’s central demand for a political transition without Assad. The government has said the future of Assad is non-negotiable.

De Mistura, asked whether Assad’s fate was discussed, replied: “We didn’t get into names of people … but actually how to change the current governance.”

The U.N. envoy said the two sides remained far apart in their vision of a political transition, but shared some “commonalities”, including the view “that the transitional governance could include members of the present government and the opposition, independents and others”.

Giving a chilling statistic about the backdrop of violence against which the talks played out, de Mistura said that in the past 48 hours there had been an average of one Syrian civilian killed every 25 minutes and one wounded every 13 minutes.

Hossam Abu Ghayth, 29, a documentary film-maker living in the rebel-held area of Kalasa in Aleppo which was bombed on Thursday, said by WhatsApp: “There are still planes (flying) … They’re hitting everything, mosques, markets, residential buildings, field hospitals.

“Dozens of people are under the rubble and the Civil Defence cannot dig out the bodies because of the intensity” of the bombardments.

Tony Ishak, 26, a resident of the government-held area of Suleimaniya in Aleppo and a politics student, said via WhatsApp:

“It’s been really bad for around four days now, the situation is worse than bad. Shells are falling like rain everywhere. The hospitals are full.”

(Writing by Peter Millership. Reporting by Lisa Barrington, Tom Perry, Suleiman al-Khalidi, John Davison, Stephanie Nebehay and Shadia Nasralla)

Aleppo Death toll mounts; rescue workers killed

Residents and civil defence members inspect a damaged building after an airstrike on the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Attacks by government forces and rebels killed at least 30 people, including eight children, in the last 24 hours in Aleppo, a city seeing some of the worst of a renewed escalation in the Syrian war, a monitoring group said.

Intensified fighting has all but destroyed a partial ceasefire that started at the end of February, with U.N.-led peace talks in disarray.

In Aleppo, divided between areas controlled by the government and by rebels, 19 people were killed by rebel shelling and 11 were killed by government air strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

That adds to another 60 people killed over the weekend in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, according to the Observatory. Air strikes were also reported in rebel-held areas near Damascus and in Hama province on Tuesday.

In a separate incident west of Aleppo, five Civil Defence workers – first responders in opposition-held territory where medical infrastructure has all but broken down – were killed by air strikes and a rocket attack on their centre.

The Observatory and Civil Defence colleagues said the attack appeared to have deliberately targeted the rescue workers in the town of Atareb, some 25 km (15 miles) west of Aleppo.

“The targeting was very precise,” Radi Saad, a Civil Defence worker, told Reuters.

“They were in the centre and ready to respond. When they heard warplanes in the area they did not think they would be the target.” Two people were seriously wounded and ambulances and cars belonging to doctors were destroyed, another Civil Defence member, Ahmad Sheikho, said.

It was unclear whether Syrian or Russian warplanes had launched the raids. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.

Each side accuses the other of targeting civilian areas in the five-year-old war that has killed more than 250,000 people.

A Syrian military source said the army would “respond firmly” against rebels attacking government-held parts of Aleppo. State news agency SANA said what it called terrorist groups, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, had shelled those neighborhoods.

In the north of Aleppo, insurgents resumed bombardment of a Kurdish-controlled neighborhood, Sheikh Maqsoud, according to the Kurdish YPG militia.

“Civilian areas were shelled at random,” the YPG said.

The YPG and its allies have been battling rebels, including groups backed via Turkey by states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, for several months near Aleppo and close to the Turkish border.

Rebels accuse the YPG of collaborating with the government in trying to stop people using the only road into opposition-held Aleppo, something the YPG denies.

Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist group and is concerned at moves by Kurdish forces to expand their control along the Syrian-Turkish border, where they already hold an uninterrupted 400 km (250 mile) stretch.

(Reporting by John Davison; additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwan Makdesi in Damascus; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Ecuador to hike taxes, sell assets to fund quake rebuilding

Aerial view of Pedernales, after an earthquake struck off Ecuador's Pacific coast

By Ana Isabel Martinez and Diego Oré

PEDERNALES/QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) – Ecuador will temporarily increase some taxes, sell assets, and may issue new bonds on the international market to fund a multi-billion dollar reconstruction after a devastating 7.8 magnitude quake, a somber President Rafael Correa said on Wednesday.

The death toll from Ecuador’s weekend earthquake neared 600 and rescue missions ebbed as the traumatized Andean nation braced itself for long and costly rebuilding.

“It’s hard to imagine the magnitude of the tragedy. Every time we visit a place, there are more problems,” Correa said, fresh from touring the disaster zone.

The leftist leader estimated the disaster had inflicted $2 billion to $3 billion of damage and could knock 2 to 3 percentage points off growth, meaning the economy will almost certainly shrink this year. Lower oil revenue had already left the poor nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

In addition to $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders, Correa, an economist, announced a raft of measures to help repair homes, roads, and bridges along the devastated Pacific Coast.

“We’re looking at the possibility of issuing bonds on the international market,” he said on Wednesday afternoon, without providing details.

Ecuador had been saying before the quake that current high yields would make it too expensive to issue debt. Yields on its bonds are close to 11 percentage points higher than comparable U.S. Treasury debt, according to JPMorgan data, and creditors are likely to be wary after the quake.

Correa’s government in 2008 defaulted on debt with a similar yield, calling the value unfair. His government has since returned to Wall Street and Ecuador currently has some $3.5 billion worth of bonds in circulation.

In a nationally televised address later on Wednesday, Correa also announced the OPEC nation was poised to shed assets.

“The country has many assets thanks to investment over all these years and we will seek to sell some of them to overcome these difficult moments,” he said.

He also unveiled several short-term tax changes, including a 2-point increase in the Valued Added Tax for a year, as well as a “one-off 3 percent additional contribution on profits,” although the fine print was not immediately clear.

The VAT tax is currently 12 percent.

Additionally, a one-off tax of 0.9 percent will be imposed on people with wealth of over $1 million. Ecuadoreans will also be asked to contribute one day of salary, calculated on a sliding scale based on income.

‘FOOD, PLEASE’

Briefly pausing talk of reconstruction and hindering rescuers, another quake, of 6.2 magnitude, shook the coast before dawn on Wednesday, terrifying survivors.

“You can’t imagine what a fright it was. ‘Not again!’ I thought,” said Maria Quinones in Pedernales town, which bore the brunt of Saturday’s disaster.

That quake, the worst in decades, killed 570 people, injured 7,000 others, damaged close to 2,000 buildings, and forced over 24,000 survivors to seek refuge in shelters, according to government tallies.

Four days on, some isolated communities struggled without water, power or transport, as torn-up roads stymied deliveries. Along the coast, stadiums served as morgues and aid distribution centers.

“I’m waiting for medicines, diapers for my grandson, we’re lacking everything,” said Ruth Quiroz, 49, as she waited in an hour-long line in front of a makeshift pharmacy set up at the Pedernales stadium.

On a highway outside the town, some children sat holding placards saying: “Food, please.”

When a truck arrived to deliver water to the small town of San Jacinto, hungry residents surrounded the vehicle and hit it as they yelled: “We want food!”

Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have arrived in the aftermath of Saturday’s disaster and about 14,000 security personnel have kept order, with only sporadic looting reported. But rescuers were losing hope of finding anyone alive even as relatives of the missing begged them to keep looking.

Speaking from the highland capital, Quito, Correa said the death toll would likely rise further, although at a slower rate than in previous days. “May these tears fertilize the soil of the future,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito, Brian Ellsworth in Caracas; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Tom Brown, Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)

Ecuador disaster toll tops 500, big new quake shakes coast

A flattened car is seen under the debris of a collapsed hotel after an earthquake struck off the Pacific coast in Pedernales, Ecuador

PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook Ecuador’s coast early on Wednesday, terrifying locals and impeding rescuers after a bigger weekend quake battered the same area and killed nearly 500 people.

The latest earthquake hit 25 km (15 miles) off Muisne on the northwest Pacific coast at a depth of 15 km, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

That was near the epicenter of Saturday’s 7.8 quake, which devastated a long swath of the coast and dealt a major blow to the oil-producing nation’s already fragile economy.

Witnesses said two strong tremors of about 30 seconds each woke people up and sent them running into the street.

No tsunami warning was issued, and there were no immediate reports of major damage.

Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute said there were in fact two quakes of magnitude 6.2, followed by 17 aftershocks. The USGS, however, mentioned one quake of 6.1 size.

Local media reported that rescue operations were temporarily suspended because of the new earthquake, amid dwindling hopes of finding more survivors from Saturday’s quake.

That earthquake quake killed 480 people, left another 107 missing, and injured more than 4,600. It also destroyed about 1,500 buildings, triggered mudslides and tore up roads.

Some 20,500 people were left sleeping in shelters.

“PLEASE, GIVE US THE CORPSES”

Supervising work in the disaster zone, President Rafael Correa said the weekend quake had inflicted $2 billion to $3 billion of damage to the economy and could knock 2 to 3 percentage points off growth.

Lower crude revenue had already left the poor Andean nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth, cutting investment and forcing it to seek financing.

In isolated villages and towns, survivors struggled without water, power or transport, although aid was trickling in.

Along Ecuador’s Pacific coast, sports stadiums served as both morgues and aid-distribution centers.

Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have come to help. About 14,000 security force members are keeping order, but sporadic looting has been reported.

Rescuers were losing hope of finding more people alive, although relatives of the missing begged them to keep looking.

“There is still a small margin of time to find survivors,” Correa said. “But I don’t want to give excessive hope.”

One woman arrived from the highland capital Quito in search of her daughter and niece, who had been on a beach trip, and urged police to take care with excavators as they searched a destroyed hotel in Pedernales.

“Please,” she said, “at least give us the corpses intact.”

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Larry King and Lisa Von Ahn)

9 dead, in Houston Flood; more rain coming

Flood waters cover the area of FM 1463 at IH-10 in Fort Bend County

HOUSTON (Reuters) – At least nine people have died and some 1,150 homes have been damaged in flooding triggered by torrential downpours in the Houston area this week, officials said on Wednesday, as forecasts called for more rain.

Eight of those killed were found in vehicles that had been in flooded areas, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences and a local sheriff said, adding that medical examiners were working to confirm the causes of death.

The National Weather Service said more rain is on tap for the city, the country’s fourth largest, after a record-setting drenching that dumped as much as 18 inches (45 cm) on some parts of the Houston area on Monday.

The weather service has issued a flood watch from central Texas through Houston and into large parts of Louisiana.

There have been more than 1,200 water rescues during the recent flooding, with emergency crews shuttling people by boat to dry ground and picking up motorists whose cars were caught in rushing waters.

The Houston Independent School District, the country’s seventh-largest school district, said it would reopen on Wednesday after the flooding caused hundreds of schools to close earlier this week.

Heavy storms can overwhelm the drainage channels that move water from Houston back to the Gulf of Mexico, particularly if the ground is already saturated.

The city faced similar widespread flooding during a storm last May and Tropical Storm Allison’s torrent in 2001.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, the Houston bureau and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Paul Simao)

Trapped Ecuador survivors searching for hope

Red Cross members, military and police officers work at a collapsed area after an earthquake struck off the Pacific coast, at Tarqui neighborhood in Manta

By Julia Symmes Cobb

PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) – During a terrifying five hours trapped in the rubble of her own restaurant, Filerma Rayo almost lost hope.

“I was yelling and yelling and then, at the end, I started to think I would die there,” said Rayo, 33, as she nursed a crushed foot, pinned by a falling piece of cement when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador on Saturday.

The Andean nation’s worst quake in a decade killed more than 270 people, injured another 2,000, flattened buildings and tore apart roads along the Pacific coast.

“It was my siblings who saved us, the rescue teams hadn’t arrived yet,” said Rayo, who runs a restaurant on the bottom floor of a now-shattered hotel in the worst-hit town of Pedernales, a rustic beach location on the Pacific coast.

Her three brothers and sisters, also from Pedernales, came looking for Rayo and her husband, who suffered head injuries, after the quake. Guided by her shouts, they managed to remove the rubble and pull her out around midnight, well before emergency crews arrived.

Nearly 100 neighbours in Pedernales were not so lucky.

They died when the earthquake struck, sending pastel top floors crashing to the ground, punching holes in the façade of the church on the main square and obliterating a local hotel, its roof jack-knifed and crumbling.

Many residents, including Rayo and her family, spent a restless Sunday night sleeping outside on mattresses in the muggy tropical night, wary of aftershocks.

CORPSES IN STADIUM

Others, too uneasy to sleep, watched from the sidelines as firefighters continued rescue operations in some buildings, calling for silence so they could listen for cries for help.

More than 600 people were treated for injuries at tents in the town’s still-intact football stadium, or were transported by ambulance or helicopter to regional hospitals.

Most of the corpses recovered were taken to the stadium and laid out under tents. Only four of 91 had not been identified by families. Wakes and burials were being quickly arranged.

Queues for supplies like bottled water, blankets and food snaked along the stadium walls, as government and Red Cross workers rushed with aid supplies to the lush, hilly zone next to Pacific beaches.

Residents complained that a lack of electricity was keeping them from using mobile phones to contact loved ones.

Many lost all their possessions.

“There’s nothing left of the houses and nowhere safe to stay,” said housewife Betty Reyna, 44, who was keeping watch over a dozen members of her family as they slept under a gas station awning early on Monday.

Reyna, her daughter and son had travelled from the capital Quito in search of relatives when they heard about the destruction in her hometown.

They were able to find some family members but Reyna had still not seen her parents or other daughter, though she had made contact with them and knew they were largely unharmed. Her father, however, had suffered head injuries.

“We’re taking everyone back to Quito as soon as we can, at least until things calm down here.”

More than 1,000 policemen, brought in to guarantee calm, patrolled Pedernales’ streets ahead of an expected visit by President Rafael Correa.

Rayo hopes she and her neighbours will get the support they need to rebuild their homes and businesses in the long term, but her immediate request is simple.

“We need everything,” she said. “I couldn’t even get pain medication at the medical tent.”

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Bernadette Baum)

Ecuador quake death toll rises to 350; billions needed to rebuild

Red Cross members, military and police officers work at a collapsed area after an earthquake struck off Ecuador's Pacific coast, at Tarqui neighborhood in Manta

By Julia Symmes Cobb and Ana Isabel Martinez

PEDERNALES/PORTOVIEJO, Ecuador (Reuters) – The death toll from Ecuador’s worst earthquake in decades rose to 350 on Monday while traumatized survivors rested amid the rubble of their homes and rescuers dug for survivors in the Andean nation’s shattered coastal region.

At least 2,068 people were also injured in Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake, which ripped apart buildings and roads and knocked out power.

Giving the new tally of fatalities from the city of Portoviejo inside the disaster zone, President Rafael Correa told Reuters he feared the number would rise even further.

“Reconstruction will cost billions of dollars,” he also said, chatting with victims and appearing deeply moved as he toured the shattered town in the OPEC nation whose economy was already reeling from the global slump in crude oil prices.

Further north, in the beach locality of Pedernales, survivors curled up on mattresses or plastic chairs next to flattened homes. Soldiers and police patrolled the hot, dark streets overnight while pockets of rescue workers plowed on.

At one point, firefighters entered a partially destroyed house to search for three children and a man apparently trapped inside, as a crowd of 40 gathered in the darkness to watch.

“My little cousins are inside. Before, there were noises, screams. We must find them,” pleaded Isaac, 18, as the firemen combed the debris.

Tents sprang up in the town’s still-intact stadium to store bodies, treat the injured, and distribute water, food, and blankets. Survivors wandered around with bruised limbs and bandaged cuts, while those with more serious injuries were evacuated to hospitals.

While the full extent of the damage remains unclear, the disaster is dreadful news for Ecuador’s economy, which was already forecast for near-zero growth this year due to plunging oil income.

The energy industry appeared largely intact although the main refinery of Esmeraldas was closed as a precaution. However, exports of bananas, flowers, cocoa beans and fish could be slowed by ruined roads and port delays.

The quake could also alter political dynamics ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The government’s response seemed relatively speedy, with Vice President Jorge Glas flying into the disaster zone within hours and Correa coming straight back from a trip in Italy.

But some survivors complained about lack of electricity and supplies, and aid had still not reached some areas.

AFTERSHOCKS

About 230 aftershocks have rattled survivors, who huddled in the streets, worried the tremors could topple their already cracked homes.

“We’re scared of being in the house,” said Yamil Faran, 47, surrounded by some 30 people in a street in Portoviejo. “When … the aftershocks stop, we’re going to see if we can repair it.”

About 130 inmates in Portoviejo took advantage of the destruction and chaos to climb over the collapsed walls of the low-security El Rodeo prison. More than 35 had been recaptured, authorities said Sunday night.

On Monday, people swarmed into the middle of Portoviejo in search of any materials of value among destroyed buildings, including a social security office. Desks and papers lay strewn around as locals carried off aluminum window frames and cables.

“I have to take some advantage from this horrible tragedy. I need money to buy food. There’s no water, no light, and my house was destroyed,” said Jorge Espinel, 40, who works in the recycling business.

About 13,500 security personnel were mobilized to keep order.

Some $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated for the emergency, the government said.

Domestic aid funds were being set up and Venezuela, Chile and Mexico were sending personnel and supplies.

The Ecuadorean Red Cross mobilized more than 800 volunteers and staff and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was sending a team from Colombia.

Two Canadians were among the dead. Jennifer Mawn, 38, and her 12-year-old son, Arthur, died when the roof of their coastal residence collapsed.

Residents on the Galapagos islands, far off Ecuador’s coast and home to numerous rare species, said they had not been affected by the quake.

The tremor followed two large and deadly quakes that have struck Japan since Thursday. Both countries are on the seismically active “Ring of Fire” that circles the Pacific, but the U.S. Geological Survey says large quakes separated by such distances would probably not be related.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Bernadette Baum and James Dalgleish)