MANTA, Ecuador — Rescuers in Ecuador pulled three people out alive after being trapped for more than 32 hours in the rubble of a shopping center that was flattened by this weekend’s powerful earthquake.
Televised images of the dramatic predawn rescue Monday in this port city gave Ecuadoreans hope that scores of people unaccounted for might yet be found even as the death toll from Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude quake climbed more than 400.
To reach the survivors amid the debris in Manta, firefighters cut a nearly 2½-foot hole in the concrete, through which they pulled a woman. A group of firefighters applauded as she emerged headfirst from the debris, disoriented, caked in dust and complaining of pain but otherwise in good health.
Later, at the same site, they rescued another woman and a young man. All three were rushed in ambulances to a nearby hospital. Authorities said another woman remained trapped and was being given water and other supplies while rescuers attempt to remove a heavy concrete slab pinning down her legs.
Christian Rivera, the head of emergency services for the capital, Quito, said that, depending on the circumstances, a person without serious injuries can survive up to a week under the rubble.
“After that, there’s a quick decline … and the rescuers’ work becomes very difficult,” he said.
Still, there are good reasons to think more people will be found alive in the coming hours as about 450 rescue workers from Spain, Chile, Mexico and elsewhere reached the most-affected areas along the Pacific coast.
President Rafael Correa, upon arriving in Manta late Sunday, said the priority remains finding survivors.
“Our grief is very large — the tragedy is very large — but we’ll find the way to move forward,” Correa said, adding that the quake was the worst to hit Ecuador since one in 1949 that took over 5,000 lives. “If our pain is immense, still larger is the spirt of our people.”
Manta, a thriving port city, was among the hardest-hit areas. Among the many buildings that were flattened was a control tower at the airport that was home to U.S. anti-narcotics missions in South America until Correa, a critic of the U.S.-led war on drugs in Latin America, kicked the Americans out.
