Quito: The biggest earthquake in Ecuador in decades has killed 272 people - but that toll will 'certainly' rise even further, the president has said as overwhelmed rescuers struggled to pull survivors out of the destruction.
The 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and destroying buildings, bridges and roads.
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President Rafael Correa rushed home from a trip to Italy to supervise the emergency. "The immediate priority is to rescue people in the rubble," he said on Twitter.
"Everything can be rebuilt but lives cannot be recovered and that's what hurts the most," Correa told state radio.
Read: Ecuador quake survivors desperately dig for kin with bare hands
The government said 272 people were killed and up to 2,500 injured, according to the latest tallies on Sunday evening.
Coastal areas nearest the epicenter were hit hardest, especially Pedernales, a rustic tourist spot with beaches and palm trees now laden with debris from pastel-colored houses.
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Dazed residents recounted a violent shake, followed by a sudden collapse of buildings that trapped people in wreckage.
"You could hear people screaming from the rubble," Agustin Robles said as he waited in a line of 40 people for water outside a stadium in Pedernales. "There was a pharmacy where people were stuck and we couldn't do anything."
Authorities said there were more than 160 aftershocks, mainly in the Pedernales area. A state of emergency was declared in six provinces.
The quake has piled pain on the economy of OPEC's smallest member, already reeling from low oil prices, with economic growth this year projected at near-zero.
Rubble, Rain, Darkness
As darkness set in and rain began, survivors bundled up to spend the night next to their destroyed homes. Many had earlier queued up for food, water and blankets outside the blue-and-white stadium.
Inside the stadium, tents housed the dead and medical teams treated hundreds of survivors. About 91 people died in Pedernales and some 60 percent of houses were destroyed, according to Police Chief General Milton Zarate.
"We heard the warning so luckily we were in the street because the entire house collapsed. We don't have anything," said Ana Farias, 23, the mother of 16-month-old twins, as she collected water, food and blankets from rescuers.
"We're going to have to sleep outside today."
Other survivors hammered together shelters in empty lots. Police patrolled the dark town, where power remained off, while some rescuers plowed on.
Locals used a small tractor to remove rubble and also searched with their hands for trapped people. Women cried after a corpse was pulled out.
In Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, rubble lay in the streets and a bridge fell on top of a car.
