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Strong earthquake strikes Peru

By LESLIE JOSEPHS, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

LIMA, Peru - A powerful earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, reportedly
killing at least 17 people as it toppled buildings and caused many residents to
flee homes. Authorities said the quake had generated a small tsunami but it
wasn't destructive.

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Peru's highly respected Cable news station Canal N reported that the 7.9
magnitude quake had caused a church to collapse in the city of Ica south of Lima, killing 17 people and injuring
70.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the
earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at
a depth of about 25 miles. Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of
5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterwards.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center responded with a tsunami warning for the coasts of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia,
Costa Rica and Panama. A tsunami watch was issued for the rest of
Central America and Mexico and an advisory for
Hawaii.

The center canceled all the alerts after about two hours, but it said the
quake had caused an estimated 10-inch tsunami near the epicenter.

"It wasn't big enough to be destructive," said Stuart Weinstein, the center's
assistant director.

An Associated Press photographer said that homes had collapsed in the center
of Lima and that many people had fled into the streets for safety. The capital
shook for more than a minute.

Firefighters quoted in radio reports said that many street lights and windows
shattered in Lima but did not specify if there were any injuries. Hundreds of
workers were evacuated from Lima office buildings after the quake struck and
remained outside, fearing aftershocks

Callers to Radioprogramas, Peru's main news radio station, said parts of
several cities in southern Peru had been hit with blackouts. Callers reported
homes in poor neighborhoods in Chincha and Cerro Azul had collapsed.

The quake also knocked out telephone service and mobile phone service in the
capital. Firefighters were called to put out a fire in a shopping center. State
doctors called off a national strike that began on Wednesday to handle the
emergency.

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 Center 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.

The tsunami warnings caused alarm up and down the coast.

Alex Kouri president of the Callao region, which includes the port of Callao,
adjacent to Lima, urged residents to remain calm in the face of any possible
tsunami, while other officials told Radioprograms they were going to evacuate La
Punta, a Callao neighborhood, because of the potential threat of a tsunami.

In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe ordered
the partial evacuation of the southern city of Tumaco in response to the
warning.

In a press conference, Uribe said residents living along the coastal areas of
Tumaco, Colombia's southernmost city near the border with Ecuador, should immediately move to higher ground as
a preventive measure in case a tsunami strikes.

"The reports we received about a possible tsunami are contradictory so we've
asked that, according to emergency disaster plans, authorities immediately begin
the partial evacuation of Tumaco," said Uribe.

_____

Associated Press writer Alicia Chang in Los
Angeles contributed to this report.

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