The two minutes of terror sent everyone in a frenzy, running and screaming for their lives that fateful day. Buildings shook where landfill and bedrock were present and buildings simply crumbled where the fault zones were. In Lima, our capital, power outages were reported and the buildings swayed with the quake.
“This has been the most terrifying experience we’ve had,” Gladys Tarnawiecki told CNN from her home in Lima.
The 8.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred in August 2007 claimed 337 lives and injured hundreds, making it the deadliest quake in 35 years. It also damaged at least 16,000 homes severely.
All the deaths but one had been in the coastal province of Ica. Located in the south, the city of Pisco was the worst hit by the disaster. Four aftershocks ranging from 5.4 to 5.9 magnitude were felt later on, sending people into panic once again.
Then our President, Alan Garcia, said he would send 3 cabinet ministers to the worst affected areas, claiming aid would be arriving soon. He also thanked god that the earthquake had not caused “a catastrophe with an immense number of victims.”
Located on the border of two divergent tectonic plates - the South American plate and the Nazca plate - Peru is very prone to earthquakes. In the 1970’s, a more destructive 7.9 magnitude earthquake that occurred high in the Peruvian Andes killed 66,000 people by burying the town of Yungay with a landslide. The previous two earthquakes in 2001 and 2005, though deadly, were milder than the latest one.
Therefore, the government should build lower level or structured buildings to withstand the earthquakes. Buildings would be less likely to collapse, cities would sustain less damage and fewer lives would be lost in the process.
Bibliography
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6948888.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Peru_earthquake
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/peru/history.php
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/15/peru.earthquake/
http://images.google.com.sg/images?q=peru+earthquake+2007&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Zam&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=qeeAS8C8
http://ochaonline.un.org/AboutOCHA/NaturalDisasters/PeruEarthquake2007/tabid/2025/language/en-US/Default.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Plate
http://ochaonline.un.org/AboutOCHA/NaturalDisasters/PeruEarthquake2007/tabid/2025/language/en-US/Default.aspx
