QUITO, Ecuador -- Two powerful earthquakes jolted Ecuador on Wednesday, a magnitude-6.7 early morning temblor followed by a 6.8 shake around midday, causing one death and injuring dozens.
Neither quake appeared to have caused serious damage, but President Rafael Correa announced on Twitter that some areas along the coast had lost power and said schools would be canceled nationwide as a precaution.
Both tremors were centered along the Pacific coast near the epicenter of last month's magnitude-7.8 quake and rattled homes as far away as the capital, Quito.
The earlier quake was centered less than 10 miles away and struck shortly before 3 a.m. less than 100 miles west-northwest of Quito.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the second quake hit at 11:46 a.m. and was centered along the coast below land about 14 miles northwest of the city of Rosa Zarate.
Correa said one person died in Manabi province in confusing circumstances that were still being investigated. At least 85 people were injured, two of them seriously.
"These sort of aftershocks are normal but that doesn't mean they're not scary and can cause damage," Correa said in a televised address after the early-morning quake. He added that aftershocks of this magnitude were normal for up to two months after a major quake like the one Ecuador experienced in April
The president said that while some previously ravaged homes suffered more damage, most had already been evacuated and no buildings had collapsed.
Security coordination minister Cesar Navas said one person was injured when a wall fell and five others were hurt in panicky efforts to flee buildings.
The magnitude-7.8 earthquake on April 16 was Ecuador's worst natural disaster in decades, killing 661 and leaving more than 28,000 people homeless. It has been followed by hundreds of aftershocks, at least five of them of magnitude-6.0 or higher.
Jorge Zambrano, mayor of Manta, one of the areas hit hardest by last month's big quake, said the streets were calm.
"It was a big shake and all of us were scared but there are no major problems at the moment," said Zambrano.
Information for this article was contributed by Joshua Goodman and Al Clendenning of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/19/2016