'The earth was like jelly' - hundreds die in Peru quake, but Lima escapes
Pastor Dale Morgan
*'The earth was like jelly' - hundreds die in Peru quake, but Lima escapes*
· 'Megathrust' demolishes towns and villages
· Rescuers race to save 200 trapped under church
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Friday August 17, 2007
The Guardian
Peruvian rescue services were combing through rubble last night for
survivors of a powerful earthquake which killed at least 450 people and
injured more than 1,500.
Several villages and towns south of the capital, Lima, were in ruins,
with dozens of bodies scattered on the streets and hundreds more feared
to be lying beneath collapsed buildings.
The 8.0-magnitude quake struck at 6.40pm local time on Wednesday and
lasted for several minutes. Power blackouts, cracked motorways and
boulders tumbling from mountains blocked the Pan-American highway and
delayed rescuers reaching the worst-hit areas.
Scientists said the quake was a "megathrust" - the largest of
earthquakes - similar to the Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated
a deadly tsunami.
At least 200 people in the town of Pisco were reported trapped under a
church which caved in during a service. "So much effort and our city is
destroyed," the town's mayor, Mendoza Uribe, told local radio.
About 70% of the port city of 60,000 people had been levelled, he said,
weeping. "We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have
fallen, churches, stores, hotels, everything is destroyed."
Witnesses from the nearby town of Chincha said there were at least 30
bodies at the badly damaged hospital. With the weather being cold many
of the homeless appealed for blankets.
Damage to the city and province of Ica was "dramatic", according to the
deputy health minister, José Calderón.
The government declared a state of emergency in the affected areas,
appealed for blood donations and mobilised thousands of police, soldiers
and medical staff. It promised an "air bridge" to shuttle the most badly
injured to Lima.
Hospital doctors called off a planned strike. Telephone companies
appealed to people to make emergency calls only.
A quarter of Ica's buildings were said to have collapsed and several
churches were badly damaged, with local media reporting that in one
church falling masonry killed 17 worshippers.
At least 57 bodies were brought to the morgue, and injured people
crowded into a hospital which resembled a war zone, with blood on the
floor, screaming children and overwhelmed medical staff, according to
reports.
Yesterday, Peru's national disaster management authority estimated at
least 450 were dead and 1,500 injured. The Red Cross said the toll was
expected to rise.
However the doomsday scenario did not happen: Lima, a vast metropolis of
poorly built concrete which has suffered cataclysmic earthquakes in the
past, shook violently but escaped with minor damage and only one
recorded death.
"It made waves and the earth was like jelly," Antony Falconi, 27, told
the Associated Press. "Who isn't going to be frightened? The Earth moved
differently this time." Another Lima resident, María Pilar Mena, 47,
said it was the strongest tremor she had ever felt. "When the quake
struck, I thought it would never end."
Others described surreal scenes with power lines flaring and
illuminating the night as if they were being shelled.
President Alan García thanked God that there had not been "a catastrophe
with an immense number of victims".
Offers of international aid poured in, with Chile being one of the
fastest in dispatching a Hercules plane with aid. Oxfam and other aid
agencies were also mobilising. The Pope offered prayers of condolence.
The US Geological Survey said the epicentre was beneath the Pacific
coast about 90 miles south-east of the capital. Four strong aftershocks
ranging from 5.4 to 5.9 followed, the organisation said.
In 1970 a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in the Andes north of Lima triggered
a landslide which buried the town of Yungay, killing up to 66,000 people.