Ecuador Slow Killers

By Michael S. Serrill

The first reports were optimistic. After two earthquakes rocked the northeastern mountains of Ecuador on March 5, the destruction in the capital of Quito, just 50 miles from the epicenter, appeared to be minor despite the temblors' high register of 7 on the Richter scale. But as reports began trickling in from Napo province, the remote Amazon jungle region that was most severely affected, the picture changed. Last week it had become clear that the quakes, which were followed by hundreds of aftershocks, constituted one of the worst natural disasters ever in the tiny South American country. As estimates of the dead rose above 1,000, a shaken President Leon Febres Cordero, fresh from viewing the stricken areas by helicopter, proclaimed, "We are facing the biggest, most profound and complex problem in our history."

The earthquakes set off severe flooding and mud slides in the highlands above the town of Lago Agrio, 150 miles northeast of Quito. A wall of mud and water careered eastward along the channel of the Aguarico River, sweeping away everything in its path. Entire villages, along with bridges, roads and crowded buses, were buried in thousands of tons of mud. The deluge left as many as 110,000 people homeless.

The disaster brought the country's reeling economy to its knees. Mud slides destroyed 25 miles of Ecuador's vital oil pipeline, which begins at Lago Agrio and travels 340 miles through the Andes to the Pacific port of Balao. The rupture forced the suspension of oil exports, which in recent years have accounted for 60% of the country's export earnings. Already hard hit by falling prices of crude oil, in the wake of the earthquakes Ecuador suspended all payments on its $8.2 billion foreign debt for the rest of this year. Febres Cordero said he took the action "without shame."

In the region around the town of Lago Agrio, teams of rescue workers ferried in emergency aid by helicopter. An urgent plea for outside help yielded planeloads of food, medicine and tents, including 50 tons of supplies from the U.S. By week's end officials were expressing serious concern about longer-term environmental damage. The mud slides and oil spills, said Health Minister Jorge Bracho, may have "modified the whole region of the Ecuadorian Amazon."

With reporting by Bryan Thomas/Quito