At least 450 killed in big Peru quake

AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/16/07 | Jeanneth Valdivieso - ap

[NormsRevenge]

PISCO, Peru - The death toll rose to 450 on Thursday in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. Survivors wearing blankets walked like ghosts through the ruins.

Dust-covered dead were pulled out and laid in rows in the streets, or beneath bloodstained sheets at damaged hospitals and morgues. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send the structures crashing down.

Destruction was centered in Peru's southern desert, at the oasis city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima.

The United Nations said the death toll was expected to rise beyond the 450 reported by Peru.

"It is quite likely that the numbers will continue to go up since the destruction of the houses in this area is quite total," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom.

The San Clemente church in the main plaza of the gritty fishing port of Pisco was perhaps the single deadliest spot in the magnitude-8 earthquake, which devastated cities and hamlets of adobe and brick across Peru's southern desert.

Hundreds had gathered inside San Clemente church for a service when the soaring ceiling began to break apart. Worshipers were caught in their pews.

The shaking lasted for an agonizing two minutes, burying at least 200 people, according to the town's mayor. On Thursday, only two stone columns rose from a giant pile of stone, bricks, wood and dust.

Rescuers pulled out bodies all day and lined them up on the plaza — at least 60 by late afternoon. Civil defense workers then arrived and zipped them into body bags. But relatives searching desperately for the missing opened the zippers, crying hysterically each time they recognized a familiar face.

Few in the traumatized crowds would talk with journalists. One man shouted at the bodies of his wife and two small daughters as they were pulled from the rubble: "Why did you go? Why?"

"The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets," Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN, sobbing. "We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels — everything is destroyed."

The earthquake's magnitude was raised from 7.9 to 8 on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. At least 14 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater followed. The tremors caused renewed anxiety, though there were no reports of additional damage or injuries.

President Alan Garcia flew by helicopter to Ica, a city of 120,000 where a quarter of the buildings collapsed, and declared a state of emergency. He said flights were reaching Ica to take in aid and take out the injured. Government doctors called off their national strike for higher pay to handle the emergency.

"There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they've been very generous," Garcia said during a stop in Pisco, where so many buildings fell that streets were covered with small mountains of adobe bricks and broken furniture.

The help includes cash from the United States, United Nations, Red Cross and European Union as well as tents, water, medicine and other supplies. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, equipped with a staff of 800 and 12 operating rooms, is in Ecuador and could quickly sail to Peru if asked, U.S. officials said.

In Washington, President Bush offered condolences and said the administration was studying how best to send help. One American died in the quake, according to the State Department.

Electricity, water and phone service were down in much of southern Peru. The government rushed police, soldiers and doctors to the area, but traffic was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway. Large boulders also blocked Peru's Central Highway to the Andes mountains.

Many people said they had seen "lights in the sky," a phenomenon authorities attributed to short circuits at electrical plants where the quake damaged cables and other equipment.

In Chincha, a small town near Pisco only 25 miles from the quake's epicenter, an AP Television News cameraman counted 30 bodies in a hospital patio. The face of one victim was uncovered, her eyes open. The feet of another stuck out from under a blanket.

Hundreds of injured lay side-by-side on cots on walkways and in gardens outside hospital buildings, kept outside for fear that aftershocks could topple the cracked walls.

"Our services are saturated and half of the hospital has collapsed," Dr. Huber Malma said as he single-handedly attended to dozens of patients.

The quake toppled a wall in Chincha's prison, allowing at least 600 prisoners to flee. Only 29 had been recaptured, national prisons official Manuel Aguilar said.

Overstretched police and rescue workers in orange uniforms sought to help survivors trying to get some sleep in the streets amid collapsed adobe homes.

"We're all frightened to return to our houses," Maria Cortez said, staring vacantly at the half of her house that was still standing.

The Peruvian Red Cross arrived in Ica and Pisco 7 1/2 hours after the quake, about three times as long as it would normally have taken because of road damage, Red Cross official Giorgio Ferrario said.

In Lima, 95 miles from the epicenter, only one death was recorded. But the furious two minutes of shaking prompted thousands to flee into the streets and sleep in public parks.

"The earth moved differently this time. It made waves and the earth was like jelly," said Antony Falconi, 27, trying to find a bus to take him home.

Scientists said the quake was a "megathrust" — a type of earthquake similar to the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves. "Megathrusts produce the largest earthquakes on the planet," said USGS geophysicist Paul Earle.

Wednesday's quake caused a tsunami as well, but scientists expected surges of no more than 1.6 feet in faraway Japan.

In general, magnitude 8 quakes are capable of causing tremendous damage. Quakes of magnitude 2.5 to 3 are the smallest generally felt, and every increase of one number on the magnitude scale means that the quake's magnitude is 10 times as great.

The temblor occurred in one of the most seismically active regions in the world at the boundary where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates meet. The plates are moving together at a rate of 3 inches (7.5 cms) a year, Earle said.

The last time a quake of magnitude 7.0 or larger struck Peru was in September 2005, when a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked the country's northern jungle, killing four people. In 2001, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck near the southern Andean city of Arequipa, killing 71.

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Associated Press writers Monte Hayes, Edison Lopez and Leslie Josephs in Lima, Martin Mejia and Mauricio Munoz in Ica, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Alicia Chang in Los Angeles and Sarah DiLorenzo in New York contributed to this report.

[NormsRevenge]

Residents and rescue workers try to use the public payphones in Pisco some 245 km (150 miles) south of Lima August 16, 2007. Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday, piling some of them on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country's central coast. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo (PERU)

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An image of Jesus is seen among the remains of a house following a deadly earthquake that hit the area late Wednesday, in the town of Pisco, 240 km. ( 150 miles ) south of Lima, Thursday Aug. 16, 2007. The death toll rose to 450 on Thursday in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

[NormsRevenge]

An aerial view of Senor de Luren church in Ica, 265 kms ( 164 miles ) southeast of Lima, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007 with part of its roof and its main tower collapsed, after an earthquake hit the area Wednesday, killing 17 people who were attending mass. The death toll in the magnitude-8 earthquake that struck Peru's southern desert has risen to 450 with about 1,500 injured, a senior U.N. official said Thursday, citing figures from Peru's National Disaster Management Authority. (AP Photo/Luis Choy/El Comercio)

[NormsRevenge]

..

Cracks are seen along the Pan-American Highway after an earthquake in Chincha, 200 km (125 miles) south of Lima, August 16, 2007. Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday, piling some of them on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country's central coast. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo (PERU)

[gleeaikin]

Those road cracks remind me of the highway damage after the big Anchorage EQ a few decades ago.

[lormand]

My next door neighbor is hiking the “Classic” trail to Machu Pichu this week. He told his wife that they didn’t feel anything there, and are safe where they are currently. I think he has to connect back via Lima on his way back though.

[LdSentinal]

:-(

[NormsRevenge]

Hope they have a good stay and safe trip, quakes are funny sometimes where they are felt or propagated too, not sure of the exact distant form the epicenter but Machu Picchu is built into a pretty solid chunk of mountains..

[NormsRevenge]

I had a chance to visit Anchorage some years back and went a park where land had given way and swallowed up houses, they had the roads in good order but looking at some of the pics downtown and surrounding Anchorage was a mess, it was no easy fete.. That was a 9+, there was a 9.5 or so in Chile in 1960.. talk about an E ticket ride.

[NormsRevenge]

Many people said they had seen “lights in the sky,” a phenomenon authorities attributed to short circuits at electrical plants where the quake damaged cables and other equipment.

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or maybe it’s the piezoelectric effect.. two large sections of earth’s rocky crust rubbed and pounded together under immense pressure,, add some quartz in..

[NormsRevenge]

Electricity lines that fell in Lima after an earthquake. Officials battled Thursday to help victims of a huge quake which rocked Peru's southern tourist coast killing some 500, injuring hundreds more, and leaving many feared trapped in the rubble.(AFP/Eitan Abramovich)

[NormsRevenge]

Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday and bodies piled up on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country's central coast. (Graphic/Reuters)

[lormand]

I think they are about 500-700 miles from the epicenter.

All this quake activity makes me nervous. I'm going to visit my bro in Santa Rosa next week. They are very close to the San Andreas Fault line.

This Cajun boy is used to Hurricanes, which gives you time to duck. Quakes aren't as courteous.

[NormsRevenge]

I’ll take both of them over a tornado anyday.. We live within reach of good sized faults here, San Andreas, Hayward and Calaveras..

[lormand]

I live in the same County (Williamson, Texas) as is Jarell Texas which was hit by a F5 in 97'.

There were only slabs of concrete left after that one.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Hurricane Dean is a stalkin’

Earthquakes are a rockin’

Volcanoes are a poppin’

Vick is a coppin

Padilla ain’t gonna be walkin’

and it be all Bush’s fault

Cause al Gore is a talkin’

[NormsRevenge]

It wipes em clean , 200+mph winds can do that.

[NormsRevenge]

You nailed that one. ;-) Thanks!

[shield]

WOW...I’m so sorry for the people of Peru

[Bean Counter]

This says a lot about construction in Peru. If this had been in China, the death toll would have been 450,000...