 QUITO – A total of 3,771 aftershocks of the massive magnitude-7.8 earthquake that rocked Ecuador’s northern coast on April 16, 2016, have been registered to date, the Andean nation’s Geophysical Institute said on Saturday. It added that a total of 29 aftershocks centered both on and off the Ecuadorian coast were recorded between 5:29 pm Friday, when a magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck, and 6:00 am Saturday. The largest of those was a magnitude-4.9 temblor at 5:37 pm Friday whose epicenter was located off the coast of Jama at a depth of 8 kilometers (5 miles). Jama was one of the towns hardest hit by the 2016 quake that battered areas of the northwestern coastal province of Manabi and the southern part of neighboring Esmeraldas province. Besides causing severe damage, that earthquake left more than 670 dead and thousands more temporarily homeless. An emergency management official, Alexandra Ocles, said in a preliminary report that Friday’s earthquake had not caused any fatalities. |