*TOOP Portal*: Ecuador earthquake: Death toll 'likely to rise'

Ecuador's president rushed home Sunday to coordinate rescue and recovery efforts after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed at least 272 people and injured thousands more.

In an address from the stricken city of Portoviejo, President Rafael Correa said that rescue crews believed that some people remained alive underneath collapsed buildings.

"The pain is immense, but the spirit of the Ecuadorian people is greater," Correa said. "We will move forward from this."

More than 2,000 people were injured in the earthquake, which hit the South American country's northwest coast at 6:58 p.m. Saturday (7:58 p.m. ET), Vice President Jorge Glas said Sunday. The number of casualties was expected to continue rising as authorities scour the region for a long list of missing people, he said.

Correa warned the death toll would "surely rise, and in a considerable way."

At least 370 buildings were destroyed, and 151 more buildings and 26 schools were affected, authorities said. Most of the deaths were in the province of Manabi, where Portoviejo and Manta are located, Glas said.

Glas said that 10,000 military troops and 3,500 police officers were initially dispatched to the affected areas and that $600 million in credit had been allotted to the emergency.

The government called in 2,000 more officers Sunday night to help "reinforce security" in the region, Diego Fuentes Acosta, the country's vice minister of internal security, said at a news conference.

Correa, who cut short a trip to Italy to return home, said the immediate priority was the search and rescue mission. "Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and that's what hurts the most," he said.

More than 1,200 Red Cross volunteers were helping render first aid and search for the large number of missing people, Glas said. But their heavy machinery couldn't be used because the equipment could put wounded people at greater risk.

Meanwhile, the U.N. emergency agency UNICEF delivered 20,000 water purification tablets to the city of Pedernales, in the hardest-hit region.