‘This used to be a calm place’: killing continues in Ecuador’s week of chaos

As cartels and crime syndicates flock to Ecuador for cocaine trade profits, its murder rate has soared, with a TV station assault the crescendo of a week of bloodshed

Political upheaval and street protests, gun battles and floods. Jose Luis Calderon has seen it all during his 23 years as one of Guayaquil's top television journalists. Never had the Ecuadorean reporter been the story himself.

That changed just after lunch last Tuesday when the 47-year-old reporter heard shouts and the sound of people running in the corridors of TC Television, the channel where he works. At first ... we thought it was a fight," he remembered. But as the yelling intensified, it became clear it was not.