Thirty people were injured by the explosion of a car bomb this Tuesday outside a shopping center and an office building of the family of President Daniel Noboa, located in the financial center of Guayaquil, the most populated city in Ecuador.
Of the thirty people, twenty-five had minor injuries caused by glass windows of buildings and vehicles that broke after the strong explosion and were treated on site by firefighters, according to a report from the National Secretariat for Risk Management (SNGR) published in its official accounts.
Videos circulating on social networks show the explosion of a vehicle in front of the Mall del Sol shopping center, in the north of Guayaquil. The authorities reported that it was an alleged car bomb attack.
In the images you can see the car wrapped in… pic.twitter.com/sJhE8rjhBS
— RTP Ecuador 96.5 Fm (@RtpEcuador) October 15, 2025
The government entity, cited by the agency EFEpointed out that three other people with major injuries were stabilized at the scene and that the remaining two remain in a nearby hospital.
The explosion occurred around 6:30 p.m. local time (23:30 GMT), after a parked van began to catch fire quickly, as can be seen in videos from video surveillance cameras and also from people circulating in the sector, where there are also hotels, restaurants, banks and other businesses.
Colonel Martín Cucalón, chief of the Guayaquil Fire Department, pointed out that the deceased was a taxi driver and that the injured were sent to a nearby hospital, while the Police evacuated all the buildings in the area, such as hotels, offices, restaurants and other businesses.
Two explosions in one month
This is the second vehicle to explode in Guayaquil in less than a month. On September 26, another car was detonated outside the Guayaquil Regional Prison, although on that occasion there were no injuries or deaths.
Additionally, on October 9, the Police deactivated explosives attached to a gas cylinder found in a vehicle parked outside the Litoral Penitentiary, the most populated and dangerous prison in the country.
The explosion was so strong that it caused the windows of some of the surrounding offices and the shopping center to crack. The Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was beginning an investigation.
The United States and Ecuador consider reactivating a military base after 16 years of absence
Since 2024, Ecuador has been living under an “internal armed conflict” declared by Noboa to fight against criminal gangs, whom he began to call “terrorists”, and who are attributed with the escalation of violence that the Andean country is experiencing in recent years, which has placed it at the top of the homicide rate in Latin America.
This situation has worsened in 2025. In the first half of the year, the country recorded 4,619 homicides, 47% more than in the same period in 2024, when 3,143 murders were recorded, according to the Spanish agency.
