Peruvian rescue teams scrambled on Friday to find survivors in the disaster zone of a powerful earthquake that killed about 500 people and where an aftershock of 6,0 magnitude struck on Friday, the United States Geological Survey and witnesses said.
The main quake of 8,0 magnitude hit on Wednesday and many of its victims were poor, killed when their flimsy mud-brick homes collapsed. Hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed, forcing residents to lay bodies out on city streets.
Reuters witness said there were no immediate reports of damages or injuries from the aftershock, centred about 145km south of the capital on the coast.
The aftershock rattled Peruvians on Friday, sowing panic in the hardest-hit towns, south of the capital, Lima, where volunteers tried to help emergency crews find the living and treat the injured.
At least 510 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1 000 wounded since the big quake, the United Nations said on Friday, quoting national and local authorities.
Thousands of people were homeless and forced to sleep outside. They complained of a lack of medical attention and emergency supplies. The damage was worst in the cities of Canete, Chincha and Pisco.
Collapsed church
The rescue of a man from the rubble of a collapsed church brought some hope to search teams in the town of Pisco.
”This is virtually a miracle; hopefully we can find more,” said Carlos Cordova Gomez, chief of Peru’s voluntary firefighters, who worked under floodlights to dig through the church ruins alongside police, soldiers and volunteers.
”For the time being we’re going to keep on looking for bodies,” said Felipe Aguilar, directing army rescue efforts in the town. ”For us, this is the priority right now, because we’ve already pulled one person out alive.”
In the square where the devastated church once stood, hundreds of residents gathered in the only part of the town of 120 000 with any light after the quake, which cut electricity and phone lines and cracked major highways.
Pisco, famous for the grape liquor that bears its name, was worst affected by the quake along with the towns of Ica and Chincha, where hundreds of prisoners escaped from a jail when the tremor tore the old building apart.
President Alan Garcia visited the quake-hit areas on Thursday and sent condolences to the families of the victims.
Wednesday’s quake was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the South American country during the past century. In 1970, an earthquake killed an estimated 50 000 Peruvians in catastrophic avalanches of ice and mud that buried the town of Yungay.
In downtown Lima, the Peruvian flag flew at half-mast after Garcia declared three days of national mourning.
On the web
On Friday, bloggers were also reporting on the quake and its aftermath.
Blogger Rockin’ Dolls wrote on Thursday: ”Our government is doing now as much as they can, but unfortunately we do not … have enough helicopters, not enough food, not enough basic supplies.
”It is so bad that people is crying for coffins to bury their dead, but we can’t send them what they need because the highways are closed because they are cracked or [covered with] rocks, again we do not own enough helicopters or people specialised in the army for this type of situation.”
A blog by the Gardner family in Peru read: ”Yesterday evening, Peru had the strongest earthquake … in over 40 years. My wife was at the church in the choir when everything started shaking. We have quite a few tremors in Peru, so we don’t get too jumpy with everything moving, but it just kept on moving and wouldn’t stop. My wife said that some of the church members were looking at their watches and claimed that the earthquake went for 38 seconds.
”Many of the Peruvian people are sleeping in tents out in the parks for fear of their houses not holding up. For quite a few hours after the quake, we were under a tsunami warning.
”The quake was so bad that the Pan American Highway, the highway that stretches from the southern tip of Chile all the way into Canada, was interrupted. People were stealing from the stranded passengers on buses as well as in their private vehicles.”
Another blogger simply confessed: ”After the incident, I realised how heartless my employer is. When other buildings were evacuating, we were instructed to stay put and not panic. C’mon, our lives are at risk. OK, I admit that I just wanted a break from work. But it won’t hurt to let us have a peace of mind by leaving the building, right?”