Quito_ Experts from nine nations are working today in Ecuador with the hope of finding more survivors and healing those injured due to one of the worst earthquakes in the history of this South American country, Prensa Latina reports.

The rescue operations and the search of people is the priority set by the government since the night of April 16, when an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude left 413 people dead and over 2,000 injured.

There are still debris to be removed in the devastated northwest coast of Ecuador, where many keep the hope of finding their loved ones.

Given the seriousness of the earthquake, the Executive declared a state of emergency to forewarn the public order and activated the contingency funds in order to support the reconstruction efforts.

The national government authorized yesterday the Ministry of Finance an outlay of 160 million dollars to address the damage caused by the earthquake, a fund coming from a budget of 600 million dollars that the country has for such cases.

The government also decided to transfer 43 million dollars to the autonomous governments (GAD, in Spanish) of Manabi, to help them get resources to deal with the emergency.

According to president, Rafael Correa the reconstruction of the affected areas will take months, years and cost hundreds, probably billions of dollars.

Correa assured that these villages need to be rebuilt, like the Tarqui neighborhood in Manta, and the towns of Canoe and Jama.

The Ecuadorian Secretariat for Risk Management reported 640 people housed, 805 buildings destroyed, 608 affected and 119 schools damaged.

Also, the Ecuadorian Red Cross estimated the number of victims could be more than 100,000.

Along with 609 Ecuadorian firefighters, more than 500 experts from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico and El Salvador participate in the search and rescue works.

The Minister of Transport and Public Works, Walter Solis said that more than 10 percent of the state road network was destroyed.

By disposition of the Executive, around 10,000 troops of the Armed Forces and more than 4,600 policemen are deployed in areas of greater damage.

Meanwhile, in Quito and other cities of the country, Ecuadorians organize collections of food, blankets, tents, bottled water and other items to send to their affected coastal countrymen.

Since the earthquake on April 16, the seismographs of the Geophysics Institute recorded 327 aftershocks with a magnitude between two and six degrees on the Richter scale.

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