INTL Strong earthquake in southern Peru leaves two dead, 17 missing - [7.1]

[Melodi]

Strong earthquake in southern Peru leaves two dead, 17 missing
Reuters
By Marco Aquino
,Reuters•January 14, 2018
By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) - A strong magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the coast of southern Peru on Sunday morning, leaving two dead, 17 missing and several dozen injured, while causing homes and roads to collapse.

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The quake hit offshore at 4:18 a.m. local time (0918 GMT) at a depth of around 36 km (22.4 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. Its epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean 40 km from the town of Acari.

Arequipa Governor Yamila Osorio said on Twitter that one 55-year old man died in the town of Yauca after being crushed by rock. Jorge Chavez, chief of Peru's Civil Defense Institute (INDECI), told local radio station RPP that a second death was reported in the town of Bella Union.

INDECI said on Twitter that 65 people were injured.

"There are several homes affected and it is possible that the count of victims and injured will rise," Chavez said.

Peru's health minister said 17 people were missing after an informal mine east of the coastal city of Chala collapsed following the quake.

Several municipalities were without electricity, and many roads and adobe houses had collapsed, Osorio said. Many residents of Lomas, a coastal town, were evacuated after feeling an aftershock, she said.

Earthquakes are common in Peru, but many homes are built with precarious materials that cannot withstand them.

In 2007 an earthquake killed hundreds in the region of Ica.

Peruvian maritime authorities said the quake did not produce a tsunami on the Peruvian coast.

Peru is the world's No. 2 copper producer, although many of the mines in the south are located far inland from the coastal region where the quake struck. A representative of Southern Copper Corp said there were no reports of damage at its Cuajone and Toquepala mines in the regions of Moguegua and Tacna.

Jesus Revilla, a union leader at the Cerro Verde copper mine in Arequipa, said there were no reports that operations had been affected.

The quake was also felt in northern Chile, Peru's southern neighbor. Chile's National Emergency offices said there were no reports of injuries, damage to infrastructure, or interruption of basic services. Chile's navy said the quake did not meet the conditions that would produce a tsunami off its coast.



(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Luc Cohen; Additional reporting by Antonio de la Jara in Santiago; Editing by Dale Hudson and Louise Heavens)

 

[Firebird]

My ears have been ringing since before that 7.4 off Honduras, maybe this explains it

 

[jward]

Oh fun- the ring of fire is acting out lately. These magnitude 7s seem a bit on the strong side.

 

[Melodi]

Oh fun- the ring of fire is acting out lately. These magnitude 7s seem a bit on the strong side.

When you consider that "officially" the San Francisco Quake of 1989 was downgraded from a 7.1 to a 6.9 (but I've always found that a bit suspect) yep a 7.1 can do a whole lot of damage.

It just depends on where it hits, the larger one last week didn't do much damage at all (except to the nerves of everyone in the area until the tsunami alert was turned off); a very small quake (3. something) did some significant damage in the UK a few years ago (I don't think anyone was hurt but buildings cracked, stuff fell into the street etc) that's because the UK hasn't had Earthquakes very often for the last several hundred years so buildings are not made to take it.

On the other hand, the "Ancient Engineers" in the Mediterranean already knew how to build buildings that could withstand even some large quakes; both the one remaining building we have from the Ancient Roman period in Rome and Hagia Sophia (in Istanbul, originally a church) was built with Earthquake engineering; which is why both are still standing despite about two thousand years of moderate to large quakes.

After the San Francisco quake, the people of Albania started taking up collections of supplies and their very limited cash because the quake that had killed thousands in their country the year before (and pretty much destroyed their infrastructure) was the same magnitude; they were so grateful for US aid that when they thought San Francisco must be flattened too (along with a lot of Northern California) people who had almost nothing tried to repay the kindness they had received.

While the Bay Area did have deaths and damage, those earthquake building standards made the difference between thousands dead and a couple of hundred - stlll tragic but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

 

[tanstaafl]

You can make a mud brick house capable of withstanding an earthquake. The house probably won't be habitable afterwards, but at least it stays together so that people can make it out alive and recover their possessions. But who at that level of income is going to take the time and spend the money on Western-style steel reinforcing rods stretching across the rooms and steel cables wrapped around the house? Fortunately there are also cheaper and easier methods, albeit maybe not so durable as using materials made of steel. Here are links to two (there were quite a few .pdf file hits when I used the search terms "earthquake reinforcement for mud brick houses"):

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7648-string-mud-and-bamboo-make-a-quake-proof-house/
https://cals.arizona.edu/OALS/ALN/aln47/zegarra.html - this one starts off specifically mentioning Peru