Warscapes | 10/27/2017
“Ecuador won’t be destroyed by natural disasters, but rather by bad politicians.”
So go the words of Mariana de Jesus, patron saint of Ecuador’s capital Quito, immortalized for flagellating herself to keep away earthquakes. The saint has the haunting ability to appear in any corner of Quito. Her soft eyes keep guard over the most unexpected street corners, regularly hang below the rear-view mirrors of taxis and rest in the country’s most decadent and iconic church.
Ecuador is a country intimate with disaster. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake shattered its coast last year, but it has known many more. Fourteen of its volcanoes are active, landslides are annual and the country lies directly on the ring of fire and in the path of El Niño, the climate cycle that brings extreme floods and droughts. The eruption of its supervolcano Chalupas, whose impact scientists compare to the landing of a large a meteor, could alter the planet’s climate.
Ecuadorians, though, act as if they live in the eye of the storm. It’s not uncommon to find a settlement that taunts tsunamis, landslides, or tectonic plates to devour them whole.
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The gap created by the fault line, covered by leaves.
Remains of a house in La Cruz.
A chapel cracked and overrun by pigeons after the earthquake.
Maria Telvina Carasco, earthquake survivor. She was three years old when it hit.
The new church of Pelileo Grande next to the remains of the old church.
Monument commemorating the victims, in the middle of Pelileo Grande’s park, built on top of a mass grave and over the fault line.
The cemetary of Pelileo Grande
Pelileo Nuevo, close to where Fernando and Sebastian live.
A house overlooking Quito, susecptible to landslides.
A young woman looking out over her porch onto the gorge below.
A settlement built into the side of the gorge.
Naomi Cohen | journalist 