Ecuador landslide kills 41
An avalanche of rock and mud slammed down on a group of stranded motorists in Ecuador, killing at least 41 people, authorities said yesterday.
The people were grouped together around a campfire to get warm after several buses, trucks and cars were blocked by an earlier landslide caused by torrential rain.
The deaths occurred yesterday about 30 miles east of the capital, Quito, according to a statement by Ecuador’s Civil Defence office.
The accident brings the total number of people killed in the country to 41 during several days of heavy rains. Nearly 2,500 other people, mostly in Ecuador’s eastern and southern Amazon region, were forced to evacuate their homes because of rivers overflowing their banks, officials said.
A landslide also ruptured Ecuador’s main oil pipeline and is expected cut off transport of crude oil for four to five days, Rodolfo Barniol, president of Petroecuador, said.
Landslides near the village of Papallacta, about 31 miles east of Quito, had damaged a 200ft stretch of the oil pipeline. He said the landslides had also ruptured a 500ft section of a nearby gas pipeline.
Barniol said in an interview that technicians would take "between four and five days to repair both lines." He added that there was no danger of gas or oil shortages as a result of the damage.
Between 800 and 1,000 barrels of gas had escaped and was on fire, and some 10,000 barrels of crude had also spilled nearby, he said.
Oil is Ecuador’s primary export, accounting for about 43% of the nation’s annual budget.
