Vol. 71/No. 32      September 3, 2007

The death toll in the earthquake, which registered 8.0 on the Richter scale, has risen to more than 540, with thousands injured.

The overwhelming majority were killed as homes and buildings made with adobe bricks collapsed.

The center of the destruction was in the city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. The quake knocked down electrical power lines and cut off telephone and mobile phone communication for much of the region. The main highways from Lima also suffered major damage.

In the provincial capital Ica, one quarter of the buildings collapsed. There are major concerns about the spread of disease. Thousands are sleeping out in the open in the winter cold, with no access to drinkable water, food, or medicine. Hospitals that did not collapsed are overwhelmed.

“We don’t have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen,” said Pisco mayor Juan Mendoza. Eighty-five percent of Pisco’s downtown is rubble, according to Brig. Maj. Jorge Vera, head of the rescue operation there.

At least 80,000 people have lost their homes. The disruption of water supplies is also threatening livestock and agriculture.

The country’s lack of infrastructure—the result of decades of imperialist domination—and inadequate government response following the quake have magnified the human toll and scope of the social disaster.

Aid did not begin to arrive to the main disaster zone until about 36 hours after the earthquake, reported Associated Press. In rural areas surrounding Ica and Pisco, survivors have not yet received much help, and have largely depended on themselves to survive.

“The supply trucks go by and the anguish of watching them pass without giving us anything forces us to stop them and take what we need,” said Reyna Macedo, a 60-year-old mother of seven from Pisco. Some have taken to the streets to protest the food and water shortages.

President Alan García sent 1,000 extra troops to the region August 19 to prevent looting and “establish order” by “whatever it takes,” reported BBC News.

“I understand your desperation, your anxiety,” said García during a visit to the area two days before. “There is no reason to fall into exaggerated desperation.”

While donations have began to arrive from relief agencies and governments from different countries, totaling $40 million so far according to the August 19 Washington Post, emergency supplies have only reach a small percentage of the affected population. The Cuban government flew in two mobile hospitals with a medical team of 42 people.

The U.S. government donated a meager $150,000 for emergency supplies, along with two mobile clinics and two helicopters to help in the rescue effort. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, now docked in Ecuador, wasn’t sent to Pisco “because both governments decided it wasn’t needed,” reported the Washington Post. The Comfort carries 800 medical personnel, “but Peru needs supplies more than doctors,” said U.S. embassy spokesperson Dan Martinez.  
 
 
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