Ecuadorian man pulled from earthquake rubble says he won't need the coffin his wife bought him

Despite the grief roiling the earthquake-stricken town of Portoviejo, Pablo Cordova has something to be thankful for: he can return the coffin his wife had obtained for his funeral.

The 51-year-old hotel administrator was one of a trickle of survivors pulled from the rubble after Ecuador's strongest earthquake in decades flattened towns along the coast and killed more than 500 people.

Cordova's wife had given up on ever seeing him again after the five-story Gato de Portoviejo hotel collapsed on him Saturday night, pancaked by the magnitude-7.8 earthquake like the rest of downtown. She asked his boss to buy his casket.

But Cordova held out for 36 hours beneath the rubble, drinking his own urine and praying service would be restored before his cellphone battery died. He was finally able to call his wife on Monday afternoon, and was pulled from the wreckage soon after by a team of rescuers from Colombia.

Grinning from beneath his bushy mustache in a provincial hospital, Cordova said:

They were organizing the funeral, but I've been reborn.

I will have to give that coffin back because I still have a long way to go before I die.

Associated Press

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