'The Earth Was Like Jelly' - Hundreds Die in Peru Quake, But Lima Escapes

Peruvian rescue services were combing through rubble last night for survivors of a powerful earthquake which killed at least 450 people and injured more than 1,500.

Several villages and towns south of the capital, Lima, were in ruins, with dozens of bodies scattered on the streets and hundreds more feared to be lying beneath collapsed buildings.

The 8.0-magnitude quake struck at 6.40pm local time on Wednesday and lasted for several minutes. Power blackouts, cracked motorways and boulders tumbling from mountains blocked the Pan-American highway and delayed rescuers reaching the worst-hit areas.

Scientists said the quake was a "megathrust" - the largest of earthquakes - similar to the ¬Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated a deadly tsunami.

At least 200 people in the town of Pisco were reported trapped under a church which caved in during a service. "So much effort and our city is destroyed," the town's mayor, Mendoza Uribe, told local radio.

About 70% of the port city of 60,000 people had been leveled, he said, weeping. "We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen, churches, stores, hotels, everything is destroyed."

Witnesses from the nearby town of Chincha said there were at least 30 bodies at the badly damaged hospital. With the weather being cold many of the homeless appealed for blankets.

Damage to the city and province of Ica was "dramatic", according to the deputy health minister, José Calderón.

The government declared a state of emergency in the affected areas, appealed for blood donations and mobilized thousands of police, soldiers and medical staff. It promised an "air bridge" to shuttle the most badly injured to Lima.

Hospital doctors called off a planned strike. Telephone companies appealed to people to make emergency calls only.

A quarter of Ica's buildings were said to have collapsed and several churches were badly damaged, with local media reporting that in one church falling masonry killed 17 worshipers.

At least 57 bodies were brought to the morgue, and injured people crowded into a hospital which resembled a war zone, with blood on the floor, screaming children and overwhelmed medical staff, according to reports.

Yesterday, Peru's national disaster management authority estimated at least 450 were dead and 1,500 injured. The Red Cross said the toll was expected to rise.

However the doomsday scenario did not happen: Lima, a vast metropolis of poorly built concrete which has suffered cataclysmic earthquakes in the past, shook violently but escaped with minor damage and only one recorded death.

"It made waves and the earth was like jelly," Antony Falconi, 27, told the Associated Press. "Who isn't going to be frightened? The Earth moved differently this time." Another Lima resident, María Pilar Mena, 47, said it was the strongest tremor she had ever felt. "When the quake struck, I thought it would never end."

Others described surreal scenes with power lines flaring and illuminating the night as if they were being shelled.

President Alan García thanked God that there had not been "a catastrophe with an immense number of victims".

Offers of international aid poured in, with Chile being one of the fastest in dispatching a Hercules plane with aid. Oxfam and other aid agencies were also mobilizing. The Pope offered prayers of condolence.

The US Geological Survey said the epicenter was beneath the Pacific coast about 90 miles south-east of the capital. Four strong aftershocks ranging from 5.4 to 5.9 followed, the organisation said.

In 1970 a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in the Andes north of Lima triggered a landslide which buried the town of Yungay, killing up to 66,000 people.