El Salvador aftershock claims at least two lives
At least two people have been killed in an earthquake in El Salvador just weeks after more than 800 died in a January tremor.
Emergency officials said there were early, scattered reports of damaged houses and of major roads closed by landslides.
Don Blakeman of the US Geologic Survey in Colorado, described it as an aftershock of the January 13 quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 - generally considered a moderate earthquake.
The quake hit at about 8:25 am (14.30 Irish time) about 50 miles southeast of the capital, San Salvador - roughly the same spot as January's quake It was felt strongly in neighbouring Guatemala and Honduras.
Residents of the capital fled into the streets in panic as the earthquake hit. Within minutes, local radio stations reported at scattered landslides around the capital.
The Green Cross rescue service said a collapsing grain tower killed two people in San Martin, about 11 miles east of the capital. It also said that 75 houses in that city were reported damaged.
The National Emergency Committee said a hospital in San Salvador and another in San Miguel in the east of the country had been evacuated.
Local radio stations reported that landslides had blocked several roads which were still being restored after the January quake. Among those closed again was the Pan-American Highway to Guatemala.
But there were no reports of additional damage in Santa Tecla, the city where hundreds of people were buried by a landslide caused by January's 7.6 magnitude quake.
Officials say at least 827 people died then, but hundreds remain missing and hundreds of thousands are homeless. It has been followed by more than 3,200 aftershocks.
