Torrential rains in Muisne canton in Ecuador's northwestern Esmeraldas province have affected around 600 families after the Sucio River burst its banks on Tuesday.
The flooding inundated at least ten settlements across the San Gregorio parish, damaging approximately 800 hectares of agricultural crops.
Following instructions from Muisne Mayor Yuri Colorado Márquez, technical teams from the Municipal Directorate of Environment and Risks deployed to assess the extent of the disaster.
The swelling of the Sucio River affected the rural settlements of San Salvador, San José, Mono Bravo, Mono Manso, La Magdalena, Canalón, San Jacinto, El Pailón, Las Delicias, and San Pablo, all located within San Gregorio parish.
Municipal workers are gathering field data in the impacted communities to determine the full scale of the damage and identify priority relief needs for affected families.
At the same time, the Muisne municipal government is coordinating emergency response operations with Ecuador's National Secretariat for Risk Management to deliver immediate aid.
San Gregorio parish has suffered recurring flood disasters during recent rainy seasons, having experienced similar winter flooding in both 2023 and 2025. Muisne is a coastal canton in Esmeraldas province, a region in northwestern Ecuador where heavy seasonal rainfall routinely causes river basins to overflow.
Road closure and landslides
Heavy rainfall also triggered a landslide on Tuesday morning along the Santa Patricia-San Ramón rural road, restricting travel between Chura parish in Esmeraldas canton and Chontaduro parish in Rioverde canton.
Álex Benalcázar, municipal director of environment and risk for Esmeraldas, reported that a technical team deployed to the location on Tuesday to inspect the road closure.
Héctor Carrera, former president of the Chura parish local government council, said heavy machinery was expected to clear the blocked road, which was recently constructed by the Prefecture of Esmeraldas. Local parish councils in Ecuador, known as GADs, manage rural community affairs in coordination with provincial authorities.
The incident follows other recent rain-related emergencies across Esmeraldas province. On 15 September, the Mache River overflowed, affecting several families in the Crisanto Vera settlement in La Unión parish, within Quinindé canton.
Two days prior to that river surge, on 12 September, a downpour lasting over an hour caused a landslide that damaged the side of a cane-walled house in the upper Los Girasoles neighbourhood in southern Esmeraldas city. Traditional cane structures are common across coastal Ecuador but remain vulnerable to landslides during severe weather.
Sanitation works and El Niño funding
To prevent municipal flooding in Esmeraldas city, joint water utility Emapse and the Esmeraldas Mayor's Office began maintenance on the local sanitary and storm drainage networks.
Johan Estacio, a technician with Emapse, explained that teams are clearing drainage channels to prevent blockages caused by accumulated mud and rubbish.
Looking ahead to provincial recovery efforts, Esmeraldas Governor Juan Jaramillo announced that the Ministry of Infrastructure plans to purchase new heavy machinery for the province with an estimated investment of 17 million dollars.
Governor Jaramillo stated that the machinery purchase forms part of a 600 million dollar fund provided by the World Bank to support emergency responses to the El Niño climate phenomenon. El Niño is a periodic Pacific ocean warming pattern that drives heavy rainfall, storms, and flooding along South America's western coastline.
