Residents of Portoviejo Take Stock Amid the Ruins

Portoviejo, Ecuador — Construction fumes clouded the humid air of this provincial capital early this week, as bulldozers cleared away remaining debris from the downtown. In the neighborhood of San Pablo, under the shadow of a seven-story office building tilted precariously to its side, dozens of residents prepared to spend another night sleeping outside. Most of their homes were tagged with orange demolition notices, headlined by the word ‘unsafe.’

Every thirty minutes or so, a mini-van or pick-up truck stopped by to deliver private donations of food and water. Without prompting, the men and women split into separate queues to accept the provisions, a practiced display of organization developed over several days.

More than a week since a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed 655 people and displaced tens of thousands in cities and towns along the Pacific Coast of Ecuador, many survivors here remain gripped by uncertainty over their futures.

In the city center, which has been left largely uninhabitable by the damage, the municipal government has completed its building inspections, but residents say they’ve been told it could be weeks before demolitions are finished and the reconstruction can begin. Basic services like potable water and electricity, restored in much of the city, remain scarce in the hardest hit areas.

“We’ve been left with practically nothing,” said Eliana Yajaira, whose house had collapsed. Ms. Yajaira, who has legal authorization to work in Spain, said she hoped to travel there with her three children, but that finding the money would be difficult; her husband is now unemployed, after the building he worked in as a security guard was destroyed in the earthquake.

On the same block, Jaime Intriago, a construction worker whose apartment was also marked for demolition, lamented the lack of jobs in the community. He, like many of the survivors here, was already struggling to find employment amid Ecuador’s ongoing economic contraction, driven by low oil prices and a subsequent pull-back in government spending.

“I’d like to be part of the reconstruction,” he said, “building earthquake-proof buildings.”

A mile down the road, nearly 1,000 displaced people camped out at the Portoviejo airport, the largest refuge in the city. Under a grey tent, church volunteers offered free haircuts to survivors, while children circled around a group of national police, who provided entertainment by directing their canines to jump through hula hoops.

A whiteboard in the information tent kept track of the people in the camp, recording information about the number of families and the condition of their houses. The amount of people at the camp had declined from nearly 1,400 in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, but in interviews several of those remaining said they expected to be there for the foreseeable future, particularly while aftershocks persisted. Some parents noted the Ministry of Education’s announcement that schools in affected areas would remain closed until early July.

“There’s no work,” said Margarita Delgado, who was sharing a tent donated by the charity World Vision with her husband and five-year-old daughter. Ms. Delgado added that her daughter’s behavior was just now beginning to return to normal after the trauma of seeing their house collapse during the earthquake.

“Basically everyday, she’s been very nervous and irritable,” she said. “She’s wanted to spend all of her time in the tent with us.”

Two tents over, Marcela Cedeño said she felt lucky to have ended up at the airport camp, which she said was safer for her children than the downtown area, and better supplied than more remote parts of Manabi province where help was days on arriving.

“In other places they say there’s still a lack of food, so we’re privileged to be here.”

Nearby, Santiago Cisneros, a pharmacist with the Ministry of Health, roamed from tent to tent, educating families on how to maintain clean living spaces. Several mosquito-borne diseases are present in the area, including the Zika virus, Dengue, and Chikungunya. Mr. Cisneros said a lack of coordination between the city and national governments had left the camp with a dearth of water designated specifically for the maintenance of cooking facilities.

“It’s very easy for sanitary conditions in these types of places to deteriorate,” he said.

But Mr. Cisneros was also encouraged by the arrival on Sunday of several dozen waterproof tents from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which were set to replace tarps privately donated in the immediate aftermath. Those tarps, he said, which lacked floors, offered little protection against the rain and had led to a number of mattresses being soaked last week.

In another corner of the camp, the mayor of Portoviejo, Agustín Casanova, made his daily rounds, stopping to watch a middle-aged lady blow out candles during an impromptu birthday celebration. In an interview, he said that the camp would be open for one month, before the city was ready to inaugurate more permanent shelters for displaced people.

“My biggest concern is commerce,” he said, noting that rescue operations were now concluded. “This week, we’re going to try to begin restoring jobs for people, particularly the poorest residents who are in the most vulnerable situations.”

President Rafael Correa announced a series of fiscal measures last week, including a two percent increase in the national sales tax, aimed at generating some of the $3 billion he estimated rebuilding the country’s damaged infrastructure would cost.

But back in San Pablo, residents worried about financing their personal recoveries.

“Maybe the city government can provide us with a loan,” said Gustavo Rengifo, who sat shirtless on a plastic chair, waiting for the next donations to arrive.

Mr. Rengifo, who said he hoped to move out of the city when he had the resources, was camped out near a small parcel of land, full of weeds that encased a caved-in single-story structure. Sticking out of the ground was a wooden sign, with a message carved in large, weathered letters.

It read: this plot is for sale.