Peru rushed aid yesterday to towns devastated by an earthquake measuring 7.9 in magnitude that killed at least 47 people, injured 550 and flattened villages, civil defense officials said.
Expressing "profound sadness for the victims," President Valentin Paniagua set off to the zone of destruction around Moquegua, 1,400km south of Lima, and Arequipa, Peru's second-largest city, 1,000km south of the capital. He called the situation "very serious."
President-elect Alejandro Toledo postponed a trip to the US yesterday to "extend a hand of solidarity" to the suffering.
Civil defense spokesman Jorge Arguera said 22 people had died in Arequipa, 16 in Moquegua and nine in the nearby city of Tacna. He said the death toll could rise.
"There is an enormous quantity of injured and the dead are literally thrown about on the ground," said an RPP radio reporter in Moquegua, where 20 to 25 people were reported injured.
By early yesterday, there had been 26 aftershocks, Peruvian officials said. Aftershocks ranged up to 6.2 on the Richter scale.
In Arequipa -- dubbed "the white city" for its original colonial architecture and beautiful churches -- the number of injured reached about 200, civil defense spokesman Juan Carlos Puertocarrero said. Television pictures showed piles of masonry blocking the sidewalks.
Puertocarrero said another 200 or so people were injured in Tacna, where more than half the city's homes were reported damaged.
Peruvian officials said the earthquake measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, but the US Geological Survey reported it as magnitude 7.9. It struck at 3:33pm, with its epicenter 82km northwest of the southern town of Ocona, Peru's Geophysical Institute said.
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