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Peru

quake death toll 355, rising

By MARTIN MEJIA and MAURICIO MUNOZ, Associated

Press Writers 15 minutes ago

ICA,

Peru - Rescuers

struggled across a shattered countryside on Thursday to reach victims of a

magnitude-8.0 earthquake that killed at least 355 people. More than 1,500

people were reported injured and the Red Cross said the toll was expected to

rise.

The center of the destruction was in Peru's

southern desert, in the oasis city of Ica and the

nearby port of Pisco,

about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. Pisco's

mayor said at least 200 people were buried in the rubble of a church where they

had been attending a service.

In Ica, a

city of 120,000 near the epicenter, a fourth of the buildings collapsed, at

least 57 bodies were brought to the morgue and injured parents and children

crowded into a hospital where they waited for attention on cots. Several Ica churches also were

damaged, including the historic Senor de Luren church. Cable news station Canal

N said 17 people were killed inside one.

The earthquake's magnitude was raised from 7.9 to 8 on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. At

least 15 aftershocks followed, some as strong as magnitude-6.3.

The scope of the destruction became more evident as the frigid dawn broke,

revealing thick stone and masonry walls in piles around the region. The quake

knocked out telephone and mobile phone service between the capital and the

disaster zone. Electricity also was cut, with power lines drooping dangerously

into the streets.

The government rushed police, soldiers, doctors and aid to the area, but traffic

was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway south of Lima. Large boulders also

blocked Peru's Central Highway to

the Andes mountains. Rescue flights from Colombia

and Panama

were being prepared, but it wasn't immediately clear when they could arrive.

In Chincha, a small town 20 miles north of Pisco, an AP Television News

cameraman counted 30 bodies under bloody sheets on a patio of the badly damaged

hospital. About 200 people were waiting to be treated in walkways and gardens,

kept outside for fear that aftershocks could topple the cracked walls.

"Our services are saturated and half of the hospital has

collapsed," Dr. Huber Malma said as he single-handedly attended to dozens

of people.

Chincha looked as if it had been bombed. Large areas were completely

leveled; dozens of homes made with adobe bricks had collapsed. Townspeople

picked through the rubble of their homes, wrapped in sheets that made them look

like ghosts in the early dawn.

"We're all frightened to return to our houses," Cortez said,

staring vacantly at the half of her house that was still standing.

The Peruvian Red Cross arrived in Ica and Pisco 7 1/2 hours after the initial quake,

about three times as long as it would normally have taken because of road

damage, said Red Cross official Giorgio Ferrario.

He said he expects the death toll to climb.

"The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets," Pisco Mayor

Mendoza told Lima

radio station CPN.

"We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen.

Churches, stores, hotels — everything is destroyed," the mayor said,

sobbing.

In Lima, about 95 miles from the

epicenter, only one death was recorded, and some homes collapsed. But the

furious two minutes of shaking prompted thousands of people to flee into the

streets and sleep in public parks for safety.

"This is the strongest earthquake I've ever felt," said

Pilar Mena, 47, a sandwich vendor in Lima.

"When the quake struck, I thought it would never end."

Antony Falconi, 27, was desperately trying to get public transportation home

as hundreds of people milled on the streets flagging down buses in the dark.

"Who isn't going to be frightened?" Falconi said. "The earth

moved differently this time. It made waves and the earth was like jelly."

Firefighters put out a fire in a shopping center. State doctors called off a

national strike that began on Wednesday to handle the emergency. President Alan

also said public schools would be closed Thursday because the buildings

may be unsafe.

Peru's Civil Defense agency

said that at least 355 were dead and 1,500 injured.

The earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. about 90 miles southeast of Lima at a depth

of about 19 miles, when one of the region's two constantly shifting plates dove

under the other quickly, according to Amy Vaughan, a USGS geophysicist at the

National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

The last time a quake of magnitude 7.0 or larger struck Peru was in

September 2005, when a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked the country's

northern jungle, killing four people. In 2001, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck

near the southern Andean city of Arequipa,

killing 71.

___

Associated Press writers Monte , Edison and phs in Lima, Chang in Los Angeles and

DiLorenzo in New York

contributed to this report.