Whole Peru City Lies Beneath Grey Mud

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32323, 15 June 1970, Page 8

Whole Peru City Lies Beneath Grey Mud

(NZ.P.A..Reuter-.Copyrightl

YUNGAY (Peru), June 13.

The unwary visitor sinks knee-deep in the grey mud to the sniggers of local Quenchua Indians. Beneath the ooze lie the bodies of an estimated 20,000 men, women and children.

This is, or was, Yungay, described in the official Peruvian guide books as , the country’s tourist cap!- ‘ tai nestling in the Andes and enjoying a mild climate. Today, Yungay is no more. It was obliterated by two avalanches of mud, giant boulders and ice after a massive earthquake carved a corridor of death and destruction through northern Peru on May 31. -At least 50,000 people were killed in the unheaval. Yungay, more than 200 miles north of Lima, was .the worst hit and provided the biggest slice of the death toll. Only the tops of four paint trees protrude front the plain of mud to mark the site of Yungay’s main square. A few groups of Indians dig forlornly among the ruins of houses on the edge of the avalanche to salvage pieces of broken and twisted furniture. “It sounded like 50 thundering jets” one survivor said as he described the twin avalanches which crashed down on Yungay’s bustling streets .'.nd modern office blocks • about 90 seconds after the ’quake. Two Landslides

One landslide came from the north-east and the other from the south-east face of the towering Huscaran, at 21,994 ft the second highest mountain in the Andes. in Huaraz, where an- estimated 10,000 people were killed, the view of the mountains from the main square is no longer obstructed by buildings. Whole streets have been reduced to rubble. At the town cemetery the survivors bury their dead with scant ceremony in common graves. The largest building still partJy intact in the middle of Huaraz is the cathedral where the prior, Brother Bede Jamieson, of Derby, Indiana, head of the group of Benedictine priests there, was teaching Sunday school when the earthquake struck. “We told the children to be calm," said Brother Pius, of

Aurora, Indiana, “but when we saw the walls start to fall we went out in opposite directions.”

His colleague, Brother Jamieson, managed to save two children and a woman before the roof collapsed. Now he lies buried on the knoll overlooking Huaraz along with an estimated 50 per cent of the 200 children in the church. Some traders have returned to lay out their wares on a small vacapt lot near the centre of Huaraz as bulldozers grind into the wreckage of nearby streets. But the city is far from returning to normal life. And it may never return. Victims Helped

Midway between Huaraz and Yungay is the small village of Anata which, like the rest of the valley, lies in ruins. Yet all is bustle and activity. Peruvian Air Force

1 planes are landing regularly lat a makeshift airstrip. ! Clouds of dust rise as the planes shuttle to and from ■ Lima, bringing in troops, s supplies and fuel and return--1 ing with the injured. From a helicopter pad ! beside the airstrip, Peru- : vian, American and civilian > helicopters fly to the 1 surrounding mountains carrying doctors, medicines and I food and returning with the 1 injured. ' In a makeshift hospital beside the helicopter pad, '■ doctors are performing emergency amputations and placing broken limbs in plaster. 1 Then the victims are flown to Lima. About 90 per cent of those injured have been brought in from the mountains, accord- ' mg to a Peruvian officer. But American troops say many small villages have yet to be reached.