A TV crew doing a Story

Right during the Earthquake a TV crew is doing a report on Elvis Presley in Peru. They are on the 8th floor in a building in Miraflores, Lima. The women who you hear screaming histerically are praying very fast. Watch for the shaking.

Hundreds Dead in Peru Earthquake

Tens of Thousands Displaced, Some in Isolated Areas; Capital Is Largely Spared

By Lucien Chauvin
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, August 17, 2007; Page A01

LIMA, Peru, Aug. 16 -- Victims of Peru's deadliest earthquake in more than 35 years were pulled from the rubble of adobe huts and dust-covered buildings on Thursday, as tens of thousands of people displaced by the disaster sought shelter.

Authorities said 437 people had been killed and more than 800 injured in the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday. The casualty figures were likely to rise as relief efforts spread out from urban areas and into the region's isolated mountainside communities.

More than 16,000 homes were seriously damaged in the quake, nearly all of them in the southern cities of Pisco and Ica.

The hardest-hit towns were without electricity and effectively cut off from the rest of the country. Sizable chunks of the Pan-American Highway, which travels along the Peruvian coast linking most of the country's major cities, were destroyed during the temblor. Relief workers said it could take days to reach some areas.

On the ground, residents were in need of blankets, clothing and food. In the city of Chincha, near Pisco, many of those displaced by the quake had congregated in a municipal soccer stadium.

"There are a lot of people still in the stadium," one resident, Maribel Valle Umbrosio, said in a telephone interview. "They don't have anything left and need urgent help."

Valle Umbrosio said her house was not seriously damaged in the quake, but she and other residents whose homes were apparently spared slept overnight in the stadium, fearing the consequences of powerful aftershocks. There had been more than 360 of them by 5 p.m. Thursday, authorities said, some as strong as magnitude-6.

Lima, the capital, was largely unscathed by the quake, whose epicenter was 95 miles to the south. Some buildings sustained minor damage; only one death was reported. Still, when the temblor struck at about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, buildings swayed, the streets rolled like an ocean wave, and people screamed in panic.

The shaking lasted for two minutes. The newspaper La Republica captured the moment in a banner headline in its Thursday editions: "Two Minutes of Terror."

Sergio Alvarez, an emergency relief coordinator for Oxfam International, arrived in Pisco, a city of 116,000 people, aboard an air force flight about six hours after the earthquake. At the time, he said, the city still looked like "one big dust cloud." He estimated that up to 60 percent of the city's buildings could be permanently damaged.

"The immediate need is to get people food, water and temporary shelter," he said in a telephone interview. "We need to start thinking about the long term."

Peru's Civil Defense Institute, which supervises disaster relief, established an air bridge between Lima and Pisco, with air force planes ferrying tons of supplies to some of the affected areas and returning to the capital with seriously injured victims. Several hospitals in Ica were damaged in the earthquake.

Letter to Friends

by Dr. Michael Renfer
Imagine it’s early evening, your sitting at your desk revising some forms, relaxing music in the background when you hear the rattling sound of the big loose glass door. A sound familiar when the dog is playing outside. We are used to small tremors here. Normally they last a couple seconds and it’s over. But this time was different. This time the floor began to move, the structure of the house started to move as well. I got up and went to the secretaries to let them know to get out. But they already were on their way. They were more worried about their family than themselves, started to cry for her mother who lives on the fifth floor of a building a half hour travel away. The desperation paralyzed the people. We needed to go all the way to the street because the movement didn’t stop. We had to pull one secretary by force because she stood still right beneath some windows who were at a point of shattering. Standing still I felt to movement of the ground, it’s waves. Very similar on riding waves surfing or snowboarding, but without snow and without moving ourselves. When we were outside we looked to the houses and the sky which was dark and with yellow and red lights, the phone cables shaking fiercely and the light post dancing from one side to the other always threatening to fall over. It all lasted an eternity of 2 minutes. I already had the feeling that the phone lines were not working anymore because I knew that everybody wanted to call in this very moment.
Slowly we got back into the house, first verifying if there were any visible cracks, which thanks to god there weren’t any. I sent the employees home and prepared a suitcase and the first aid box just to be ready. There were many strong (5.5) afterquakes during the night and until now we feel the movement of the earth.
After one day I organized myself with other chiropractors to go and offer humanitarian services in the most affected zone. In Lima all was quiet now and we just got scared. But through the news we knew that it was very different down south. I donated my winter cloth to the civil defense and went shopping for water and food. We organized a trip to Chincha the following early morning.
When we were there, we wanted to go the Pisco, the epicenter, but we couldn’t because of the violence on the highway and the road condition.
It’s very difficult to put into words what we saw, even difficult to put it onto foto. The suffering, the fear, the desperation of the people. We could help some but there were so many that it felt like a drop onto a hot stone.
I also feel very proud because I know there are a lot of people helping and supporting. I saw tons of good ready for distribution. I saw the people of Lima buying and emptying the supermarket in favor of the most affected.
I know that I’m living an unique experience, that we were very lucky here in Lima, the proudness that we feel in our heart for the help that is given, slowly but surely, and at the same time a profound sadness. I saw the road condition, the condition of the houses, or what’s left thereof, the fear of the people who prefer to sleep outside in the cold, the suffering of having lost family, of being separated, of having to evacuate, I saw the injuries of the people caused by falling roofs and walls. I saw bone fractures, heard the screams of babies and the smell of dust.
It’s very difficult to relate everything. But I’m letting you know that I’m fine, we keep working and serving. With a bit hug and a hearty greeting
Michael

2007 Peru Earthquake Chiropractic Commentary

by Michael Sontheimer, DC
It was an incredible event. A little after 6pm, the windows in the house began to rattle. I was adjusting a patient but we thought nothing of it. I live in Peru, this is common. I have felt dozens of tremors over the past years and some rather strong. However this was different. This was no tremor. After a few seconds it got a lot stronger. The adjusting room opens out to a garden in the back of the house. So I told the young man on the table that he was welcome to come outside with me. As I went into the garden and looked up at the house, I could see it swaying. All the other buildings in the neighborhood were doing the same. In fact, most of the buildings in the entire country were swaying. At this sight I decided I needed to be further away in case the place collapsed. I briskly walked through the house and out the front door. That is when the scene took on an even more surreal feeling. I was outside with about 10 patients that had been in the waiting room. The street began to fill as the houses and business emptied. People were crying, screaming, wailing and hugging their loved ones. Others were on their knees praying. As I stood there I felt I was on a boat in very rough water. As I looked at the street, I could see it moving in a wave-like manner. It was as if this would never stop and I honestly was expecting the earth to open up like in the movies. It was after more than two minutes of this that the telephone poles quit swaying, the ground under our feet became still once again and we knew we had just witnessed a very large earthquake. Later to find out it was a 7.9 with the epicenter located a few hours by car from Lima.

In a third world country, there are a variety of problems that we are not accustomed to in the United States. The infrastructure is simply not prepared to handle events of this kind. Immediately the phone system collapsed due to the volume of calls. No one knew anything of their family until they got to the house and saw them in person. I talked to my father, brother and cousin via the internet before anyone here could even know if their house was standing.

Fortunately, in the country’s capital of Lima there was not major structural damage on a large scale. However further south near the epicenter the picture was much more bleak. Entire towns were leveled, people were buried in the rubble. Phones were down, there was no water and no electricity. This was a very bad situation for a multitude of reasons. Primarily the death of innocent people and the worry of the loved ones searching for and finding them. But beyond that, when you are in a poor country where people are hungry and desperate every day of their lives, an event like this is an opportunity for theft and looting beyond comprehension. There were also two large prisons that collapsed and inmates had escaped.

However the help and support of the human species is a wonderful thing to witness. Two days later myself and a group of 5 other chiropractors loaded our cars with food, water, diapers, clothing and chiropractic adjusting tables and went south to where the people were in dire need. We were on our way from Chincha to a town called Pisco about 3 hours south of Lima when we noticed that traffic was backed up on the Panamerican Highway. The reason was a severely damaged bridge. When the people who were hungry, thirsty and without what little bit of material goods they had owned, saw the trucks and cars full of much needed supplies continuing south without giving them any of the goods, they became upset. Group mentality set in and the situation was bad. We turned our car around very quickly and hastily got out of there heading back north toward Chincha. There were hordes of people and only a handful of police officers. The people were breaking windows and stealing whatever they could grab out of cars. Large trucks and buses that were loaded were robbed. It was a very scary ordeal and I am fortunate to have left before things escalated even more.

On the way back north we saw a small park-like area where people were apparently camped out. What had happened was all the houses in that small town had fallen down and these people had what little of their personal belongings out in the elements waiting for aid to rebuild… aid that may or may never come. There simply is not a system with enough money and organization to help all in need. So we parked the cars right there on the highway, got out and did our part. There were many people with cuts, scrapes, bruises etc. As chiropractors we are not involved in emergency care or trauma management. But we are also caring human beings with a knowledge of the human body and an understanding of human suffering. So we set up tables and while some of us were adjusting the people, others were making sandwiches and distributing the supplies. Being there amongst so much pain and suffering is a chilling experience. It feels wonderful to help people. To receive their thanks and to see and feel the gratitude in their hugs and handshakes. But of course there are so many people that need the help, you always feel that there is more that can be done.

The goal of writing this article is to accomplish a few things. One is to let you know from a first hand source what happened here. Another is to give you the opportunity to feel sympathy, love and hope for those less fortunate. And yet another is to become involved. The information below will allow you to give what you feel you are able to help those here in Peru. Although by the time you read this article it will have been several weeks since the earthquake, the damage will not be cleaned up for many months and even years in some areas. I also want to let everyone know that when there are situations such as this, the chiropractic profession is here to lend what help we can to decrease the suffering of those in need.

If you have been moved in any way by this account of human suffering and would like to share your abundance with those who are in dire need…. I am enclosing the account information of a Peruvian bank with offices in the U.S.A. so that you may send a donation and make a difference in these peoples lives.

Dr. Michael Sontheimer is an American chiropractor practicing in Lima, Peru. He can be reached at michaelsontheimer [at] hotmail [dot] [com]