At least one person has died after a large earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 struck the Amazon jungle in north-central Peru early Sunday.
The quake, at a moderate depth of 68 miles struck at 2.41am, 50 miles southeast of the village of Lagunas and 98 miles northeast of the larger town of Yurimaguas.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, although some buildings collapsed and power cuts were reported in a number of cities. Earthquakes that are close to the surface generally cause more destruction.
Ricardo Seijas, chief of the National Emergency Operations Centre, said one person died when a rock fell on a house in the Huarango district.
A preliminary survey by authorities found that six people were injured and 27 homes damaged across seven provinces. Three schools, three hospitals and two churches were also affected.
In a tweet, President MartÃn Vizcarra called for calm and said that authorities were checking the affected areas.
Vizcarra posted on Twitter: 'The strong earthquake that occurred this morning was felt in several regions of the country. We're evaluating the affected areas.
'To all our citizens, I ask you to remain calm.'
The mayor of Lagunas, Arri Pezo, told local radio station RPP that the quake was felt very strongly there, but it was not possible to move around the town because of the darkness.
In Yurimaguas, a number of old houses collapsed, and the electricity was cut, according to the National Emergency Operations Center, which gave the magnitude of the quake as 7.2.
In the capital, Lima, people ran out of their homes in fear.
Earthquakes are frequent in Peru, which lies on the Pacific's so-called Ring of Fire.
British student Leith Livingstone, who was in Montanita, Ecuador, told Mirror Online: 'I got woken up at approx 2.40am local time with the building I'm in shaking heavily back and forth the bed was being moved with it.
'I wasn't sure what was going on till everyone came in and said it was an earthquake.
Pictures posted on Twitter showed areas of several Peruvian towns left devastated by the quake. Pictured: A partially collapsed shopping mall
'The shaking lasted at least a minute.'
The USGS wrote: 'This earthquake occurred in a segment of the subducted plate that has produced frequent earthquakes with focal depths of 100 to 150 km.
'Earthquakes like this event, with focal depths between 70 and 300 km, are commonly termed 'intermediate-depth' earthquakes.
'Intermediate-depth earthquakes represent deformation within subducted slabs rather than at the shallow plate interface between subducting and overriding tectonic plates.
'They typically cause less damage on the ground surface above their foci than is the case with similar-magnitude shallow-focus earthquakes, but large intermediate-depth earthquakes may be felt at great distance from their epicenters.'
It comes just two months after a quake with magnitude of 7.1 struck southern Peru, amid a mass of activity under the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' that sent 46 separate tremors through countries situated on the famous disaster zone.
The tremors struck in the middle of the night 50 miles southeast of the village of Lagunas and 98 miles northeast of the larger town of Yurimaguas
People salvage belongings after a quake damaged their house in Yurimaguas
A road is left cracked after the earthquake struck San Martin, Peru in the early hours of Sunday
No comments:
Post a Comment