LIMA, Peru, Aug. 16 � A day after a powerful earthquake devastated cities along Peru�s southern coast, government officials put the death toll at 437, with at least 17,000 people displaced and with wide areas without power, telephone service or road access on Thursday night.
A coffin being carried through debris on Thursday in Pisco, a port city where at least 300 victims of Wednesday’s earthquake died. More Photos »
A boy offered comfort at a makeshift hospital opened in Pisco. The quake was one of the worst ever recorded in Peru. More Photos >
At least 300 of the dead were in Pisco, a port city about 125 miles south of Lima, and more were thought to be buried in rubble, local officials said. Dozens were inside the San Clemente cathedral, which was full for Mass when the quake caused it to cave in around 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday. Witnesses said the spire bell clanged horribly in the seconds before it tumbled down.
�I am a real man, but last night I was scared,� said Luis Ch�vez, 31, who was in the main square when the cathedral collapsed. �There was so much dust that all I could think of was the World Trade Center pictures.�
The mayor of Pisco, Juan Mendoza Uribe, said the quake had destroyed as much as 70 percent of the city. �So much effort and our city is destroyed,� he said, crying audibly, in comments broadcast on the radio station RPP in Lima.
Power and water service were still out in Pisco on Thursday night, and many residents said they would sleep outside again, afraid that aftershocks could topple more structures. In the city center, the wreckage of dozens of old adobe homes lay in the streets. Rescuers, working well into the night, were often forced to walk far out of their way as they carried bodies, sometimes in shouldered coffins, toward a makeshift morgue at the hospital.
In nearby Chincha Alta, a wall collapsed at the Tambo de Mora prison, and about 680 prisoners escaped, according to Manuel Aguilar, vice president of the National Institute of Penitentiaries. About 29 were recaptured and sent to another jail, he said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman in Chincha Alta reported seeing at least 30 bodies laid out on a hospital balcony.
Judith Luna Victoria, a spokeswoman for the National Civil Defense Institute, said that the number of confirmed dead was 437 and the number of injured was more than 800, but the toll was expected to rise.
Officials with the United States Geological Survey on Thursday raised their initial estimate of the strength of the earthquake to a magnitude of 8.0, making it one of the biggest quakes to strike Peru in decades. Throughout the day Thursday, dozens of aftershocks kept rolling through the area, with at least 14 rated at a magnitude of 5 or larger.
Across the region, neighboring governments rushed to offer aid to Peru, including Chile, which on Monday had recalled its ambassador from Peru over a continuing maritime territorial dispute. President Bush offered his condolences, and his spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said a team from the Agency for International Development was in Lima.
President Alan Garc�a declared a state of emergency and flew in to visit Pisco and Ica, another hard-hit city to the south. �There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they�ve been very generous,� he told The Associated Press in Pisco.
The president of the Peruvian Congress, Luis Gonzales Posada, called on large companies to donate water, food, blankets and even coffins to aid in the rescue and reconstruction efforts.
It was one of the worst earthquake tolls recorded in Peru, which is no stranger to the disasters given the major fault line running off its coast. In 2001, a magnitude 8.4 quake struck at Arequipa, killing 138 people. In 1868, a magnitude 9 quake struck and was followed by a tsunami that killed several thousand more people, creating the worst disaster in Peru�s history.
In Lima, the capital, witnesses described the main earthquake as having come in two main waves. Some houses collapsed in the middle of the city, and the quake collapsed many power lines and broke windows across the capital. One person was reported killed on Wednesday.
Fernando Calderon, an American in Lima, said he was in his hotel when the quake struck. In a telephone interview with CNN, he described seeing buildings swaying from right to left as the ground shook.
�Finally we started hearing glass breaking and things falling out of the building, and that�s when everybody started screaming, praying, children crying,� he said. �It was just awful.�
In Ica, dozens of buildings collapsed in the earthquake and aftershocks. The local morgue had received at least 57 bodies as of Thursday, The Associated Press reported.
The quake cracked roads and brought down rocks and soil. The main road through the area, the Pan-American Highway, had only one usable lane over a stretch of more than 20 miles, and traffic was backed up for miles past.
To visit the worst-hit towns, officials, including President Garc�a, had to use helicopters.
In Pisco, many of the survivors were in shock, wandering the streets and crowding around the overwhelmed hospital, desperate for reports about loved ones or distraught after receiving the worst kind of news.
�There are corpses all over the place,� Luis Garc�a, a reporter for the Lima newspaper El Comercio, said in a telephone interview from Pisco. �The bodies are thrown everywhere and every family is mourning over the loss of a loved one, friend, neighbor or family member.�
He added: �The people need help to remove the rubble. They need tents, water and food, because there is nothing; everything is blocked off, destroyed.�
