Ecuador News

As more bodies were recovered Tuesday afternoon and the death toll rose to 23, government officials are blaming uncontrolled development for Monday’s flooding in Quito’s La Gasca neighborhood. “This didn’t need to happen if the city planning office had done its job over the years,” said Cristopher Velasco, president of the Ecuadorian Association of Risk...

In what officials say is the “deadliest flooding in years,” at least 14 have died and 36 others were injured in northern Quito Monday night. Meteorologists warn that more rain in expected on Tuesday. Most of the deaths and injuries occurred in Quito’s La Gasca sector, where some streets were three meters deep in water...

President Guillermo Lasso is threatening to veto legislation being debated in the National Assembly if it goes beyond the Constitutional Court’s order to allow abortion in cases of rape. Some assembly members are proposing a broader revision of the current law, in line with abortion laws recently enacted in Argentina and Uruguay, where the decision...

Ecuador’s privately held heavy crude pipeline burst on Friday and technical staff are at the scene working to contain the damage, crude transport company OCP Ecuador said. OCP is blaming the rupture on a rockfall caused by recent rains. The incident happened in the so-called Piedra Fina zone, an area in Ecuador’s Amazon where regressive...

The National Institute of Census and Statistics reports that formal employment rose to 33.9 percent of the working population in December 2021, up from 30 percent early in year, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We are recovering the lost jobs but the gains are coming slowly,” says INEC director Roberto Castillo. “In February...

People who were originally fully vaccinated with the Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine were shown to develop a high degree of immunity after receiving booster doses of either AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. In the Brazilian government-funded phase 4 study conducted by researchers from Brazil and Oxford University, patients who received an initial vaccination...

Medical groups and doctors are calling President Guillermo Lasso’s decision to reduce the value added tax for the Carnival holiday “irresponsible” and “an act of public endangerment.” According to several doctors, the tax break will encourage the gathering of larger crowds and could cause a surge in Covid-19 infections. Some doctors are also attacking his...

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso said on Tuesday he will seek to disconnect the handover of crude from outstanding debt to China during a visit to the Asian country next month, part of his plan to renegotiate some $4.1 billion in debt. In the last decade China has become Ecuador’s primary financial partner, with crude for...

Medical organizations and some physicians are claiming the national Emergency Operations Committee acted too quickly on Saturday in relaxing Covid-19 health restrictions in most of the country. They claim that the number of cases of the highly infections Omicron variant is still high and that it is too early to allow greater capacity in businesses,...

Ecuador has ordered troops to the port city of Guayaquil to combat a wave of drug-related violence that has claimed dozens of lives. President Guillermo Lasso said Sunday the military has been deployed to “strengthen control” and “prevent the entry of drugs from the north, from Colombia, or weapons from the south, from Peru.” In...

A weekend that witnessed at least 12 murders in Guayaquil, most of them committed by hitmen believed to be connected with drug gangs, is sparking public outrage and calls for an overhaul of law enforcement strategy. In addition to the dead, 16 more were injured, 11 of them requiring hospitalization. So far in 2022, the...