After Losing Hundreds in 2016 Quake, Ecuador Now Sends Help to Mexico

Coastal Ecuador, after suffering one of its worst earthquakes that killed more than 600 people, is sending aid to Mexico after its own recent quake.  

RELATED:
Mexicans Organize Citizen Brigades After Earthquake As Distrust Towards Government Grows

Following Mexico's natural disaster, Andres Drouet, a priest from Manta who experienced the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador last year, organized his community to join the rescue effort.

"This solidarity is born because we lived the same thing and we know how terrible it is," Drouet told teleSUR. "We've had the experience of an earthquake and know of the necessities that arise immediately after it." 

People who brought donations included small messages of hope, like "Ecuador Is With You" and "Be Strong Mexico." Donors sending aid to Ecuador following its own earthquake wrote similar messages. 

"These messages of solidarity are very important, sometimes as important as what they are receiving," Drouet said. "We hope this gives them the same strength that it gave us."

The port city of Manta is still recovering from the 2016 earthquake that left 673 people dead and 12,000 injured. Mexico was one of the main countries to send humanitarian aid and food to Ecuador.

"And due to all the help that we received, we couldn't remain indifferent looking at the necessities that they now have in Mexico," Drouet said.

Their main concern was how to send the aid, and so they began working together immediately after they heard that the airline AeroMexico would make one of its aircraft available to carry donations to Mexico.

RELATED:
After Mexico Earthquake, Some 3,000 Buildings Could Collapse, Engineers Say

According to Drouet, his neighbors and people from the community organized themselves through social media and visited residents house by house along the city to ask for donations, including food, diapers, toilet paper and blankets.

His small community filled a truck that gathered all of the products received, eventually bringing them to Guayaquil, where donations received from other cities are being rounded up.

Due to the large show of support and solidarity by Ecuadoreans, there will be another flight with donations leaving for Mexico on Monday, according to Drouet.