Desperation Grips Peru

PISCO, Peru — The coffins arrived faster than the men and a backhoe could dig the graves. By mid-afternoon Friday, 37 of them were awaiting burial at Pisco’s cemetery.

One coffin held both a 23-year-old pregnant mother and her 10-year-old niece. The woman’s brother-in-law used simple brush strokes to paint their names in blue on a wooden cross.

The new grave markers all had different birthdates. But they all carried the same date of death: Aug. 15, 2007, the day an 8.0-magnitude earthquake devastated much of Pisco and other parts of southern Peru.

Two survivors were rescued late Thursday from the rubble of the San Clemente church, fire rescue official Cesar Suito told The Miami Herald. About 50 to 70 bodies have been recovered just from the church ruins, he said, and rescuers expect to find 20 more.

Relief supplies — from drinking water to ice and even prefabricated homes — began to pour into this port city Friday. But the grim scenes made it clear it would be months before a sense of normalcy returns.

The earthquake killed at least 510 people, injured more than 1,550 and displaced an estimated 17,000. Much of the loss of life occurred in Pisco, 125 miles southwest of Lima, where officials estimate about 85 percent of the downtown area was destroyed.

"Tell people to send help," pleaded Reina Macedo. "Everything is ruined. We need food. Please, sir, help us. We are hungry."

The desperation for food and water reportedly sparked some looting at a public market and a refrigerated trailer carrying supplies along the Panamerican highway that links Pisco and Lima.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia appealed for calm.

"I understand your desperation, your anxiety, and some are taking advantage of the circumstances to take the property of others, take things from stores, thinking they’re not going to receive help," Garcia said. "There is no reason to fall into exaggerated desperation, . . . the state is present."

Garcia predicted "a situation approaching normality" in 10 days, but he acknowledged that reconstruction would take far longer.

DEALING WITH DEATH

One of Friday’s indelible images was the coffins. In a dirt soccer field in the center of town, nine lay under a tent, with a name written on paper taped to each one. A woman who did not identify herself cried out that her husband and son were in two of those coffins.

"There are 10 more bodies, and we don’t have enough coffins," said Reinaldo Pisconte, 51, a mechanic who was helping with recovery efforts.

Others scrambled to feed their families. "We haven’t eaten in two days. . . . People are fighting over food," said Jose Luis Escate, 35, carrying a live duck. A neighbor had handed out 14 ducks to hungry people, he said.

Aid was arriving at the air force base in Pisco, known as Grupo Aereo 51.

"Planes are arriving constantly from Lima," said James Atkins, who is heading up relief efforts for the Peruvian National Civil Defense.

HELP POURING IN

The Pentagon’s Miami-based Southern Command on Friday dispatched a 30-member team of Army and Air Force doctors and other medical staff to Pisco with a surgeon, anesthesiologist and a mobile operating room.

The unit, being flown in by C-130 transport plane, was expected to be ready for surgeries by this morning. Southcom officials said another 14 medical staff, including six doctors, would leave from a Texas base for Peru today.

U.S. government officials also said that $150,000 in emergency funds had been released and that two helicopters would be loaned to Peruvian authorities. Venezuela flew in 12 tons of relief supplies, and Bolivia sent 15 tons of rice, sugar, cooking oil and milk.

Atkins said the items most desperately needed were dry food, bottled water, blankets, mattresses, antibiotics and tents. Such provisions were already starting to fill the air base’s hangar.

"I think we’ll be giving out food for at least four months," he said.

Back at the San Clemente church, fire rescue teams continued to dig out the corpses of victims, put them into body bags and take them to a square across the street so that they might be identified by waiting friends and relatives.

One of those waiting was Felix Valentin, 53, a fisherman searching for his brother-in-law, who was in the church when it collapsed.

When rescue workers brought out another body, Valentin jumped up from his seat on a bench.

"Male or female?" he shouted.

It was a man, so he joined the others moving in for a closer look. But it was not his brother-in-law.

BURYING THE DEAD

Hundreds of people also waited at the city cemetery, but this time to bury their dead as more and more coffins arrived, accompanied by grieving friends and relatives.

One coffin displayed the letters ‘JM’ freshly painted in blue. He was Jose Mayuri, 83, a retired farmer killed in the church collapse.

One man carried a small coffin on his right shoulder into the cemetery. Another man followed carrying an even smaller coffin. Both were laid next to an adult-sized coffin.

An onlooker explained: A 33-year-old mother had died, alongside her 3-year-old son and 10-month old son, when her house collapsed. The backhoe finished digging a long grave. Four coffins — gray, brown, dark green and then gray again — were lowered inside, one beside the other.

"Which way is the head facing?" one man called out as he helped carry the next coffin to the long grave.

A woman in a black sweater looked on.

"My father! My father!" she cried.

A family near her threw dirt on one of the coffins in the grave. Another woman held two stick crosses, with the names of the dead in black lettering.

Darting from one part of the cemetery to another was Father Cesar Chavez, dressed in white vestments. He had been the parish priest in Pisco until moving to Lima a year ago.

Chavez stood at the end of a brown coffin, read a funeral prayer and then shook drops of water from a plastic bottle to bless the coffin.

A dozen people crossed themselves.

Chavez began to turn away.

Three people were waiting.

Speaking at once, they besieged him to bless their dead.

Miami Herald staff writer Carol Rosenberg contributed to this report from Miami.

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