Help Begins To Come for Victims Of Peru Earthquake
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
ICA, Peru — The death toll rose to 450 yesterday 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. 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 United Nations said the death toll was expected to rise beyond the 450 reported by Peru.
“It is quite likely that the numbers will continue to go up since the destruction of the houses in this area is quite total,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom said.
Pisco’s mayor said at least 200 people were buried in the rubble of a church where they were attending a service.
Some 17 others died inside a church in Ica, the Canal N cable news station said.
