Quake in Peru Kills 15, Leaves Hundreds Hurt

A powerful earthquake rocked southern Peru on Tuesday, killing 15 people, injuring as many as 700 and causing many buildings to crumble, civil defense officials said.

Hardest hit by the magnitude-6.4 noontime quake was the tourist city of Nazca, where four people were killed and 380 injured, civil defense spokeswoman Lena Montes said.

The Peruvian Geophysical Institute said the quake was centered in the Pacific Ocean about 83 miles west of Nazca, which is 235 miles southeast of Lima.

In two Nazca neighborhoods, half of the homes--many of them adobe--were damaged, officials said.

“It is incredible the need that exists in Nazca now,” said Anna Cogorno, a resident of the town of 25,000.

There was no report of damage to the famous Nazca Lines, the huge pre-Columbian etchings on a desert plain that draw tourists and scholars from around the world.

The quake lasted about a minute and was felt in Lima--where high-tension cables fell across a busy avenue--and as far away as Tacna, 600 miles southeast of the capital.

Five people were killed in the mining town of Acari, southeast of Nazca, and four people died and 200 were injured in the small town of Palpa, northwest of Nazca, Montes said. Two others died and 120 were hurt in Chincha, farther to the north.

Among the dead were two boys, ages 4 and 9, who died after a roof collapsed on top of them in Nazca, said Dr. Fermin Caceres, director of the Nazca Hospital.

Caceres said most of the injured were children and elderly people hurt when walls and roofs collapsed on them. One of the buildings damaged was a school.

The earthquake also caused damage in Ica, a city of 160,000 people 160 miles southeast of the capital.

A mine in the highland community of Santa Rosa, 250 miles southeast of Lima, caved in, civil defense officials said. There were no reports of injuries.

Civil Defense Gen. Julio Alcoser appealed for calm.