Fear, grief follow deadly quake on Ecuador’s southwest coast

By GONZALO SOLANO and REGINA GARCIA CANO
Associated Press

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — The toll from an earthquake that rocked Ecuador and Peru this weekend stands at 15 dead. And a day after Saturday’s tragedy, residents of the hardest-hit coastal regions of southwest Ecuador are uneasy. Funerals for some of the victims in Ecuador’s coastal city of Machala began on Sunday. Resident Luis Becerra says residents are fearful and still reeling. Saturday’s quake measured a magnitude 6.8 and toppled homes and buildings from coastal areas to the highlands. In Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of those homes had a lot in common: They were often old, located in low-income neighborhoods and not up to current building codes in the quake-prone country.