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Peru rocked by strong quake
16/08/2007 07:58 - (SA)
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| A resident inspects damages after a powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital. (Hector Vinces/Agencia Andina, AP) |
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Leslie Josephs
Lima - A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, toppling buildings, setting off landslides and killing at least 115 people. Over 1 000 were reported injured.
Authorities said the quake generated a tsunami, but later cancelled a warning issued for coasts from Chile to Mexico, saying the wave measured only 20 to 30cm.
"A tsunami was generated, but it wasn't big enough to be destructive," said Stuart Weinstein, assistant director of the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.
President Alan Garcia said the earthquake apparently had not caused a catastrophe.
"Thank you God Almighty, these terrible quakes did not cause a high death toll like in other years," he said in a nationally televised address.
Garcia ordered all police to the streets of Lima to keep order. He said he was sending three Cabinet members to the coastal towns of Chincha and Ica, where news reports said the quake hit hardest. Public schools will be closed tomorrow because the buildings may be unsafe.
Church collapsed, killing people inside
Cable news station Canal N reported the quake had killed 17 people and injured 70 in the city of Ica 265km southeast of Lima. The report said a church had collapsed but it was not clear if that was the cause of all the victims.
The US Geological Survey said the 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit about 145km southeast of Lima at a depth of about 41km. Six strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.0 to 5.9 were felt afterwards, the USGS said. The quake struck at 18:40 local time (23:40 GMT).
A 5.6 magnitude aftershock was reported near the coast of central Peru at around 23:00 (04:00 GMT Thursday).
An Associated Press photographer said that homes had collapsed in the centre of Lima and that many people had fled into the streets for safety. The capital shook for more than a minute.
"There was a pretty big, intense, long-wave earthquake, I felt it even though I was in a taxi," a woman named Erica in Lima told APTN television. "The car was shaking, and you could see all the buildings here in San Isidro and the glass shaking.
"People were running, everyone was grabbing their cellphones," she added. "They wanted to call home and they couldn't. No one could get through to my line either.
Subduction zone
The last time a quake of magnitude 7.0 or larger struck Peru's central coast was in 1974 when a magnitude 7.6 hit in October followed by a 7.2 a month later.
The latest Peru quake occurred in a subduction zone where one section of the Earth's crust dives under another, said USGS geophysicist Dale Grant at the National Earthquake Information Centre in Golden, Colo.
Some of the world's biggest quakes strike in subduction zones including the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves.
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