The toll from Ecuador's earthquake has risen to 480 dead, and 1,700 people are still missing three days after the disaster, the country's deputy interior minister said today.
The official, Diego Fuentes, also said 2,560 people were hurt in the 7.8-magnitude quake that struck Ecuador's Pacific coast on Saturday.
The last official death toll from the quake was 413. Officials had not previously given a number for the people missing.
The new toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Ecuador on Saturday evening updates yesterday's count of 350 dead.
A nun from Derry was among those killed. Sister Clare Theresa Crockett, from Long Tower in Derry city, was based at a school in Playa Prieta with the Home of the Mother order.
The 33-year-old was apparently trying to lead a number of people from the school when the earthquake struck and the stairwell she was on collapsed.
The quake left more than 2,000 people injured, damaged buildings and roads and knocked out power along the country's Pacific coastline.
As President Rafael Correa visited the site of the disaster, local residents pleaded for aid as the search for survivors continues.
Mr Correa said rebuilding would cost billions of dollars and may inflict a "huge" toll on the fragile OPEC nation's economy.
In Pictures: Devastation in Ecuador
Watch: A man is pulled from a hole in a ceiling as rescue attempts continue following the earthquake in Ecuador.https://t.co/Du7uk0VcCN
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) April 19, 2016
Traumatised survivors begged Mr Correa for water in the city of Portoviejo, while a soccer stadium in the beach town of Pedernales served as a makeshift relief centre and morgue.
Afraid of staying indoors, or with no home to go back to, families huddled in the streets, while police and soldiers patrolled in a bid to control looting.
Seeing the devastation first hand, a visibly moved and grim-faced Mr Correa warned that Ecuador's biggest disaster in decades would put a big toll on the poor Andean country of 16 million people.
Relief workers were confronted with swathes of flattened homes, roads and bridges as they surveyed the destruction wrought by Saturday night's quake, and the death toll was still expected to rise further.
