The casualty toll from El Salvador's second earthquake in one month held at 260 dead and some 2,200 injured, as rescue crews battled blocked roads and downed power lines to get help to stricken areas.
Some villages that suffered little damage in the Jan. 13 quake, such as San Vicente, Guadalupe and Verapaz, were devastated in Tuesday's temblor, with 50 to 70 percent of homes destroyed, President Francisco Flores said
PHOTO: AP
"We have to make the utmost effort" to maintain the supply lines to stricken communities set up after the last quake, he said, adding that hospitals and inns in San Vicente Province, one of the worst hit, were overwhelmed by quake victims.
"The death toll continues to rise. We don't know the exact numbers, but thousands have been affected," Flores said.
All schools were closed Tuesday and church services for the victims of the Jan. 13 quake were suspended after the earthquake struck at 8:22am local time.
Rescue crews made their way to the worst-hit areas in the central departments of Cuscatlan, La Paz, San Vicente and La Libertad, but road access to some areas was blocked by landslides cause by the quake.
The quake also knocked out phone service throughout much of the country. Flores said the supply of drinking water in San Salvador was "heavily damaged" and that a section of the Panamerican Highway linking North and South America had collapsed.
Authorities said people were also buried under their collapsed homes in the towns of San Miguel Tepezontes and San Agustin, outside the Salvadoran capital. Both towns were hit hard by last month's quake as well.
The earthquake measured 6.1 on the open-ended Richter scale, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Colorado.
The Nicaraguan Institute for Earth Studies measured it at 6.4. The temblor was also felt in Guatemala and Honduras.
The epicenter was located 8.2km beneath the surface of the Earth, at San Pedro Nonualco, some 60km east of San Salvador.
Between 15 and 20 school children were killed when their school building, built of mud-brick, collapsed with the earthquake, the headmistress of the Roman Catholic-run school told local television.
The traumatized teacher from the municipality of Candelaria, some 40km east of the capital, said children in her care were still buried under the rubble.
Rescue crews told television crews at the school site that they were able to pull 25 injured children from the rubble, some of whom were taken in serious condition to a hospital in San Salvador.
Presidential spokesman Luis Lopez Portillo told of more school tragedies: "In Cojutepeque alone we have reports of three schools, where classes were being held, that have collapsed," he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's government yesterday expressed its deep condolences to its ally.
The president, vice president, premier and foreign minister sent their condolences yesterday to their counterparts in El Salvador, said Andrew Chang
Chang said Taipei's embassy in San Salvador had already been asked to contact the appropriate local authorities to establish what items the country urgently needed, before sending more aid.
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