’Quake Survivors Give Thanks

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 17

’Quake Survivors Give Thanks

(N Z. Press Association —Copyright) LIMA, October 19. Survivors of Monday’s earthquake poured into city streets by the tens of thousands today to give thanks for their deliverance—and for a miracle said to have happened during another earthquake more than two centuries ago.

Young and old draped themselves in purple and girded themselves with strands of rope—symbols of piety and humility—for the hours-long procession.

The procession of the Lord of Miracles is an annual event held to commemorate the story of a Negro slave who said he saw Christ appear before him as he fell to his knees and prayed during the October 18, 1746, earthquake which levelled most of Lima.

This year, the procession had a special meaning for those who escaped Monday’s earthquake.

The latest death toll has reached 117 dead with hundreds injured and casualty reports still flowing in. The procession, in which thousands of faithful followed a huge, silver-trimmed image showing the agony of Christ on one side and Madonna of the Sea on the other, wound through streets still being cleared of rubble from the earthquake.

The Red Cross today sent a convoy of motor launches on a long sea dash to bring badly needed help to the isolated, earthquake • shattered town of Huacho.

Cars also left last night with doctors, nurses, medicines and blankets for the mountains north of Lima, where it is now feared Monday’s earthquake may have done even worse damage. What happened in the mountains is not clear. But a stream of injured Indians have been arriving in the town of Casma, east of Chancay, which is 50 miles north of Lima.