Qualla: 2023 Guayas earthquake https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: 2023 Guayas earthquake https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake 2023 Guayas earthquake: Introduction https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit MartinGZA, CC0. On the afternoon of March 18, 2023, a Saturday, the ground beneath southern Ecuador lurched. The Nazca plate, sliding eastward beneath the South American plate at roughly seven centimeters a year, released accumulated strain at intermediate depth - deep enough that the rupture radiated outward through hundreds of kilometers of rock. Within seconds, shaking reached Guayaquil, then Cuenca, then Machala. By the time the tremor faded, 8.41 million Ecuadorians - nearly half the country - had felt the ground move. Sixteen would not live to see Sunday.

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: MartinGZA | CC0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full 2023 Guayas earthquake: A Country Built on a Fault https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ecuador sits in a geological pressure cooker. The Nazca plate, born at Pacific spreading ridges, dives beneath South America at the continent's western edge, and that collision built the Andes. It also built Ecuador's population centers, its highland cities, its farmland terraces...

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-a-country-built-on-a-fault.mp3 0:06 2 full 2023 Guayas earthquake: Guayaquil at 12:12 in the Afternoon https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. In Ecuador's largest city, glass rained. Six buildings collapsed outright. Seventy-three more took damage that would render them uninhabitable. Store shutters rattled down mid-transaction. Three vehicle tunnels sealed shut. Power failed across the northern and southern sectors of...

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-guayaquil-at-12-12-in-the-afternoon.mp3 0:06 3 full 2023 Guayas earthquake: The Sea Took the Museum https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. In Puerto Bolívar, a coastal district of Machala in El Oro province, a building housing both a museum and a restaurant collapsed into the sea. The image - a structure that had stood above the water for years now sunk beneath it - became one of the most widely shared of the disast...

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-the-sea-took-the-museum.mp3 0:06 4 full 2023 Guayas earthquake: What Came After https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. President Guillermo Lasso visited the affected provinces the next day. He declared a 60-day state of emergency covering 14 provinces, opened emergency funds for health and housing, and warned that the casualty count would climb in the coming hours. It did. The Confederation of In...

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-what-came-after.mp3 0:06 5 full 2023 Guayas earthquake: Living on the Carnegie Ridge https://qualla.com/2023-guayas-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Part of what makes Ecuador's seismic landscape so complicated is that the Nazca plate carries with it the subducted remnants of the Carnegie Ridge - an oceanic plateau formed long ago as the plate slid over the Galápagos hotspot. Where the ridge slides under Ecuador, the plates l...

Read more: 2023 Guayas earthquake on Qualla

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/r/r/2023-guayas-earthquake-wp/6prr-2023-guayas-earthquake-living-on-the-carnegie-ridge.mp3 0:06 6 full