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Strong quake hits Central America
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AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 7.6 magnitude on the Richter scale left at least 60 people dead in El Salvador and Guatemala as it shook Central America and southern Mexico on Saturday, collapsing buildings across the region.
Most of the deaths in El Salvador occurred along the Pacific coast in the southwest, near the quake's epicenter, and to the north of Santa Ana near the Guatemalan border.
``We have preliminary counts of some 100 injured. We are in a national emergency and we ask citizens to help,'' El Salvador President Francisco Flores said in a radio address.
He said it appeared the San Salvador suburb of Santa Tecla and the Pacific coast province of La Libertad were among the hardest hit areas.
Police officer Alvaro Santos in Usulutan, 53 miles southeast of the capital, said three bodies were recovered from the rubble of houses, many of which collapsed in the town, home to about 5,000.
``It looks as if a war's been going on there,'' Santos said.
The United States Geological Survey said it recorded the quake's epicentre about 65 miles southeast of El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, off the Pacific coast.
``Based on its location and size, we believe this earthquake may have caused substantial damage,'' USGS geophysicist Bruce Presgrave said. ``This, very definitely, is a dangerous quake.''
The quake occurred at 11.34am and was felt across El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
Local press reports said a hospital collapsed in the southern city of San Miguel and the Red Cross said people were trapped when a church fell in the northern city of Santa Ana. The highway between San Salvador and Santa Ana 35 miles to the north, was blocked by a landslide.
"It was a shockingly strong earthquake that seemed to last for ages, pictures and mirrors were bouncing off the walls," a spokeswoman from the US Embassy in San Salvador said. ''Helicopters, presumably carrying rescue crews, are flying around the capital but it appears that the worst is not here in the capital, but in the countryside."
She said her power had been cut for more than two hours though telephone service was restored in the capital by mid-afternoon.
"We have reports that many people fled their homes," Juan Bendeck of the Honduras Civil Defense agency told Reuters. "The quake was felt in most of the country."(SD-Agencies)
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