Blog Roundup: Peru Earthquake

My wife was at the church in the choir when everything started shaking. We have quite a few tremors in Peru so we don’t get too jumpy with everything moving but it just kept on moving and wouldn’t stop. My wife said that some of the church members were looking at there watches and claimed that the earthquake went for 38 seconds. A few miles from Ica was the epicenter of the 7.9 earthquake. The electricity and phone services in the country were all shut down for a while to later be restored. I ask you to pray for the people in Peru right now. Some news agencies say that between 115 and 330 people have died. I am sure that the number will rise for the next couple of days.

Many of the peruvian people are sleeping in tents out in the parks for fear of their houses not holding up. For quite a few hours after the quake, we were under a Tsunami warning. This warning has now been lifted. All schools in the country are closed today to make sure that they are safe and that there hasn’t been considerable structural damage to the buildings.

    . . . yes like u know in Lima was happen a very strong earthquake (7.9 ). I was alone at the 3 floor alone and for 2 minuts i was ready to jump if the house go down. Rosa and her mother run out. I am so sure that God protect Peru because in 1970 here alot of people died and alot of buildings fall down. In Romania in 1977 a earthquake (7.2) kill many thousand people. Now in Peru , at this hour are 48 dead people and 350 people on the hospitals. God protect Peru and us. Thank u for be in touch with us. Rosa and Valentin

Right now we are in Trujillo, a coastal town in the north of Peru.  Last night, around 6:45, Ben and I were sitting in bed reading.  He looked at me and said, ¨Are you doing that?¨

¨No, are you?¨ I responded.

¨No…did you feel that though?¨

¨Yeah, and there it goes again.  Is it an earthquake?¨

¨I don´t know…¨

A bit of a pause, followed by:

¨Do you think we should go outside?¨ I question.

¨I don´t know, but I´m going to put on my shoes,¨ was Ben´s stellar reply.

Shortly after, the room stopped shaking.  We went back to reading.  It was about 12 seconds of confusion, but really minor.  Lucho, the friend we´re staying with, was out riding his bike and didn´t feel it.  I think if we had been doing anything other than sitting still we wouldn´t have noticed it either.

About an hour later we went to dinner with Lucho and Marcus, a Swiss cyclist.  To our suprise, the earthquake was all over the news.  Up until then we didn´t know if it had been imagined.

It was not just in our heads.  I wish it had been.  This morning, the death count in Ica is up to at least 250 and will probably rise.  Last night they were reporting two earthquakes, one second apart and both off the south coast of Peru.  One was reported at 7.6 and the other at 7.4.  Now the news is reporting one epicenter and a magnatude of 7.9.  Either way, many people have died and it caused a lot of destruction.

F¡rst thing´s first, we are fine. Second thing´s second, we felt what was registered as a 7.5 earthquake off the coast of central peru. I don´t know how far the epicenter was from us in Arequipa, but I know it was much closer to lima which is about 600 miles away from us. Nonetheless, as we sat around making "wash mits" for Deedra´s patients, we felt a distinct shaking of our house. The indoor plants swayed to and fro, and we sat there for what seemed like 20 - 30 seconds discussing that this must be a pretty large earthquake. It is too early to tell what the damage may be, if any, but our house stood the shaking just fine. I don´t want to take any credit for the quake, but this now makes my pariticipation in above 7.0 earthquakes climb to grand total of 3. I am somewhat of an earthquake magnet it seems. We´ll keep you posted on further details.