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Peru earthquake death toll rises to 510

By JEANNETH VALDIVIESO, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 16, 11:03 PM ET

PISCO, Peru - The death toll rose to 510 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.

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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 deputy chief of Peru's fire department, Roberto Ognio, presented a report
saying the death toll from the quake had risen to 510. He did not say where the
additional 60 deaths had occurred.

Earlier Thursday, the United Nations said the
official toll of 450 dead was expected to rise.

"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 in the pews of the San Clemente church Wednesday — the
day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven — for a special
mass marking one month since the death of a Pisco man.

The church ceiling began to break apart as the shaking began and lasted for
an agonizing two minutes, burying 200 people, according to the town's mayor. On
Thursday, only two stone columns and the church's dome 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."

Rescue worker Jose Nez, who went into the church wreckage dozens of times,
said rescuers would keep it up "until the end," as a mechanical shovel cleared
away chunks of adobe.

As dusk fell, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said finding survivors seems
increasingly unlikely.

"We keep losing hope of finding someone alive after 24 hours have passed"
since the quake struck, Vallejos told The Associated Press outside of the
church.

But around 6:30 p.m., almost 24 hours since the quake struck, a man who
identified himself only as "Alfredo" was pulled from the rubble by six
firemen.

Some 17 people died inside a church in Ica,
the Canal N cable news station said. The historic Senor de Luren church was
among several heavily damaged in Ica, where at least 57 bodies were taken to the
morgue.

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.

___

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.

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