[2] There was major damage, 446 injuries and 18 fatalities[3] in Ecuador's El Oro, Azuay and Guayas provinces.

The Carnegie Ridge is an oceanic plateau that formed as the Nazca plate passed over the Galapagos hotspot.

The earthquake had a magnitude of Mw 6.8 and estimated maximum MMI of VII (Very strong), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

[8] The country's Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School reported the EMS-98 intensity was V–VI (Strong–Slightly damaging) in southern Guayas Province.

[9] The earthquake occurred as the result of oblique-slip faulting at an intermediate depth near the subduction interface of the Nazca and South American plates.

Its faulting mechanism and depth suggest the event occurred within the subducted lithosphere of the Nazca plate.

Earthquakes in Ecuador and most of western South America are caused by the strains generated by ongoing subduction.

Typically less damaging on the ground surface above their epicenter than is the case with similar-magnitude shallow-focus earthquakes, but can still be destructive.

[11] In El Oro, 40 houses collapsed[11] and 12 people – including an infant and five members of a single family – were killed, mostly in the city of Machala.

[17] In the southern parts of some places in the province, telephone lines were downed and power outages occurred.

[25] Two people died in Cuenca, the provincial capital, including one person killed when a house façade collapsed onto a car;[13] another two were injured.

[31] President Guillermo Lasso urged citizens to remain calm, adding that "Emergency teams are mobilising to offer all their support to those who have been affected.