PERU ’QUAKE TOLL RISES

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32313, 3 June 1970, Page 17

PERU ’QUAKE TOLL RISES

1000 Dead Found;

Villages Gone

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LIMA (Peru), June 2.

Rescuers toiled today in ruined towns and villages of northern Peru, seeking several thousand earthquake victims believed buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

More than 1000 bodies have been recovered so far and about 80,000 people are homeless in the Andes foothills and coastal region to the north of the capital city of Lima. The Associated Press earlier quoted officials of the Peruvian Government’s Disaster Committee as saying that the death toll “could possibly reach 30,000.” The New York Times News Service correspondent in Lima also reported that the death toll was expected to reach 30,000.

But United Press International said that a Presidential spokesman emphatically denied the reports and, in the first official estimate, said that at least 1000 people were killed and 5000 seriously injured in the earthquake.

Officials expect a death toll of several thousand from Sunday's 40-second earthquake, the worst Peru has had this century. But it will be many days and in some cases weeks before any firm final figures of the death and devastation emerge.

Many villages in remote Andes regions were completely swept away by avalanches and others are blocked off by giant landslides.

In some towns, floods submerged airfields and made airlifts of food and medical supplies risky if not impossible.

The Government has launched a vast aid operation, sending in rescue teams by air, sea and road to help the stricken areas.

As the rescuers moved in, another tremor, of medium i intensity, hit the region and I

caused panic among the nerve-shattered homeless. Officials said that a total of 1000 bodies had been dug out of ruined homes and buildings in the towns of Chimbote and Huaraz alone and more were expected to be found.

In Huaraz, a town of narrow winding streets about 150 miles from Lima, 650 bodies were unearthed from the piles of rubble and 2500 people were badly injured. The earthquake flattened 95 per cent of the buildings. In Chimbote, a port 240 miles north of Lima, hundreds more bodies were pulled out from the mounds of masonry.

More than 85 per cent of Chimbote’s buildings were destroyed by the tremor, which registered force six on the 12point Mercalli scale and 7.7 on the open-ended Richter scale. Spokesmen for the United States Southern Command in Panama said that Peru had asked for assistance for its devastated regions. As soon as Peru made clear Its needs it would take only eight or 10 hours to load planes with supplies for an airlift, the spokesman added. The command maintains a complete disaster relief supply ready to be flown to any part of Latin America. Chilean Air Force planes also prepared to fly in food, medicines and vaccines Jo the area, the Chilean Embassy in Lima said.

Witnesses gave reporters the first harrowing details of the disaster.

One, a policeman, said: “The ground just opened. People ran frantically here and there not knowing what to do or where to go. "Church steeples just crumbled and collapsed on to nearby houses smashing walls and roofs as people ran round

completely terrified. Whole areas suddenly turned into a mass of ruins, with trapped people groaning and calling for help.” A taxi-driver, Mr Pelayo Ramos Yemaque, who frequently makes the run from Lima to Chimbote, said: “The earth began to shake beneath me while a tremendous noise came from the ground. People were screaming in the houses and then started leaping like madmen into the streets. “I saw a little old woman, an Indian, run and then lie prostrate in the road, calling for mercy from heaven,” Mr Yernaque added. President Juan Valsasco Alvardo, of Peru, with several members of his Cabinet, arrived in Chimbote last night to inspect the disaster area. Peru is no stranger to earthquake disasters, which have often caused heavy loss of life in countries sharing the Andes mountain range. In May, 1940, a violent earth tremor which registered eight on the Mercalli scale, rocked Lima, causing 200 deaths and 5000 injured.

This time the Peruvian capital suffered only minor damage. No serious injuries were reported.