36 Dead in Ecuador Avalanche
Q U I T O, Ecuador, June 12 -- An avalanche of rock and mud slammed downon a group of stranded motorists in the Andes east of the capitaltoday, killing at least 36 people, authorities said.
Torrential rains set off the deadly landslide that swept overthe victims as they hovered around a campfire, trying to get warmafter their vehicles were blocked by an earlier avalanche,Ecuador's Civil Defense office said. The tragedy occurred early Tuesday about 30 miles east of Quito,according to a statement released late Tuesday by civil defense. Noother details were immediately available.
Days of Deadly Rains
The deaths brought to 41 the number of people killed duringseveral days of heavy rains in Ecuador's Andes Mountains. Meanwhile, nearly 2,500 other people, mostly in Ecuador'seastern and southern Amazon region, were forced to evacuate theirhomes because of rivers overflowing their banks, officials said. A landslide also ruptured Ecuador's main oil pipeline, sendingflames shooting into the air. Rodolfo Barniol, president of Petroecuador, said the rupture isexpected cut off transport of crude oil for four to five days.
Oil Pipeline Damaged
The landslides near the village of Papallacta, about 30 mileseast of the capital, Quito, had damaged a 200-foot stretch of theoil pipeline. He said the landslides had also ruptured a 500-footsection of a nearby pipeline carrying home cooking gas. Barniol said in an interview with Radio Quito that technicianswould take "between four and five days to repair both lines." Headded that there was no danger of gas or oil shortages as a resultof the damage. Between 800 and 1,000 barrels of gas had escaped and was onfire, and some 10,000 barrels of crude had also spilled nearby, hesaid. The accident comes four months after the government signed a$1.1 billion contract for the construction of a second oilpipeline. Environmentalists have opposed that project because its plannedpath will take it through some 53 miles of ecologically fragilemountain forest located between the petroleum-rich Amazon jungleand Pacific coast.
