The earthquake in Peru
Edit: there is a new post here with lots of ways to donate to help out the victims.
The Jose Padilla case is already pushing this off the US headlines, which is deeply disappointing. The death toll (400-500 thus far) does not tell the whole story. Things you should know that are not necessarily going to make the headlines:
- It’s been revised up to an 8.0 earthquake, felt as far away as Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. There have been hundreds of aftershocks, ranging from 7’s and 5’s on down.
- There’s probably 70-80,000 people directly affected, around 20,000 homeless.
- The city of Pisco was 70% destroyed. Try to picture that in your head — it’s a city of around 80,000 people. Seventy percent. Who knows how many bodies are trapped in the rubble. Photos of the worst of Pisco are here (warning, these are pictures of dead bodies laying in the street).
- Whole neighborhoods in other areas have been rendered uninhabitable, such as areas of Rimac in Lima and large areas of Ica. The adobe-and-straw construction has made entire blocks of “quintas” or enclosed alley apartment blocks very dangerous places to be.
- Cell phone, telephone, electric, and water service are all interrupted to varying degrees in various places. Water is flooding streets in a few locations. There will likely be the typical follow-on medical consequences. (Spain is sending equipment to provide clean water).
- The worst affected areas are a two-hour drive from the capital, on a 2 lane stretch of highway through the desert, which has been closed by collapsed bridges and sinkholes destroying the ability to drive some stretches. It is therefore taking aid 7 hours to reach the worst-hit areas.
- Amazingly, Internet service seems to be in pretty good shape.
- There’s a hotline for the victim list: 0-800-10828
For the best coverage, I’d suggest hitting the website of El Comercio, one of the leading papers in Peru. The BBC has a photo gallery and some eyewitness stories. But really, the English-language media isn’t doing a great job here. Far better is the coverage from Spain, such as El Pais and El Mundo.
I’ve been looking for anything like a fund drive, but can’t find anything targeted specifically to this disaster. I’ll post if that seems to change. Some banks in Lima have opened accounts to which donations can be wired directly.
And for those wondering — yes, I do still have friends and (somewhat distant) family there. So far, I haven’t heard from most of them, but they are largely in Lima, and not the worst-hit areas.
7 Responses to “The earthquake in Peru”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
International news has always gotten short shrift in the USA during my lifetime. The news editors seem to think that the only important news is news from the USA.
I have to go to the BBC or to CNN International before I hear about anything outside the USA, it seems.
As I don’t speak the language, I went looking for another donation site. This might be of interest:
Donations Sought for Peru’s Earthquake Victims
August 16th, 2007 @ 2:19pm
by KTAR Newsroom {Phoenix-based}
The Consulate of Peru is collecting donations to send to Peru for antibiotics and other needs.
You can donate at Chase Bank, “The Osorio Foundation,” account number: 689805182.
Also:
Account set up for donations to Peru
Donations to help relief efforts related to Wednesday’s earthquake in Peru can be made at any Wells Fargo Bank under the Peru Relief Effort account, set up by the Peruvian community in coordination with the Peruvian consulate.
The same thing happens with natural disasters in the US as well. The news media didn’t cover Katrina wall-to-wall until the victims had been left there for seven days. Even then, the government didn’t do anything of note until nine days had past.
Not trying to minimize the issue. I’m just saying we do this in our own country as well.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SJHG-76648R?OpenDocument
OCHA reports and contacts
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-7663AU?OpenDocument
DirectRelief info
If you are like me, you may be wondering if there is anything we can do to help. Well, thanks to Saint Google, I found a few links that may interest you.
SAVE THE CHILDREN ( http://www.savethechildren.org)
========================================
You may have seen the guys from Save the Children before (they like to bug you for subscriptions and donations when you are the busiest). Anyways, it turns out that they have created a relief fund for the quake disaster in Peru. Follow this link to help:
https://secure.ga4.org/01/peru_earthquake?qp_source=gg%5fe%5fdp&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=x%5fgg%5femergencyearthquakeperu%5ftxt%5f
OXFAM AMERICA (http://www.oxfamamerica.org/ )
=====================================
Ok, these guys are not seen on the streets asking for donations but they are pretty big too. I think they are kinda rivals with Save the Children. Here is the link:
https://donate.oxfamamerica.org/02/peru_earthquake
REDCROSS (http://www.redcross.org/)
=============================
Everybody knows them, right?
There is no direct fund for Peru, but they have an International response fund here: https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=1030622738&df_id=1094&1094.donation=form1
CARE (http://care.org)
=================
Similar to the redcross link…this is also a generic page for donation (tho the title of the page says “Peru Earthquake Donations”
https://my.care.org/05/peruquake/?qp_source=170760460000
Pick anyone you like, or if you like something else go for it. The important thing here is that right now people in Ica need our help. So …let’s help 🙂
Oh, and feel free to forward this email to anyone you think will be interested too.
Best regards,
Giuseppe Robbiano
[…] Raph’s Website » The earthquake in Peru comenta: Agosto 16th, 2007 a las […]