7.9 mag NEAR COAST OF CENTAL PERU

== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==



Region: NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL PERU
Geographic coordinates: 12.226S, 76.648W
Magnitude: 7.5 Mb
Depth: 178 km
Universal Time (UTC): 15 Aug 2007 23:41:20
Time near the Epicenter: 15 Aug 2007 18:41:20
Local time in your area: 15 Aug 2007 23:41:20

Location with respect to nearby cities:
46 km (28 miles) ESE (108 degrees) of LIMA, Peru
147 km (91 miles) NNW (338 degrees) of Chincha Alta, Peru
158 km (98 miles) W (264 degrees) of Huancayo, Peru

The European Seismological Centre is reporting this to be an 8.0. Very bad news for the west coast.

Summary:
Magnitude Mw 8.0
Region NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL PERU

Date time 2007-08-15 at 23:40:57.2 UTC
Location 13.28 S ; 76.74 W
Depth 40 km
Distances 67 km W Chincha alta (pop 153,076 ; local time 18:40 2007-08-15)
42 km SW San vicente de cañete (pop 25,517 ; local time 18:40 2007-08-15)
More seismicity information (Moment tensors, phases pickings, etc.)

***This event has been revised.


Region: NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL PERU
Geographic coordinates: 13.322S, 76.508W
Magnitude: 7.9 Mw
Depth: 40 km
Universal Time (UTC): 15 Aug 2007 23:40:58
Time near the Epicenter: 15 Aug 2007 18:40:58
Local time in your area: 15 Aug 2007 23:40:58

Location with respect to nearby cities:
43 km (27 miles) WNW (289 degrees) of Chincha Alta, Peru
110 km (68 miles) NW (316 degrees) of Ica, Peru
148 km (92 miles) SSE (157 degrees) of LIMA, Peru

Powerful 7.9 Magnitude Earthquake Kills at Least 337 in Peru
Thursday, August 16, 2007

LIMA, Peru — A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital, killing at least 337 people and injuring more than 800 others in cities farther to the south, the country's health minister said early Thursday.

Seventeen people were killed when a church collapsed in the city of Ica, south of Lima, according to cable news station Canal N.

Speaking on radio stations Radioprogramas and CPN, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos gave the latest toll of victims and said he was trying to reach the city of Ica, a city of 650,000 people that was hardest hit by the quake.

Deputy Health Minister Jose Calderon called the situation there "dramatic."

The government rushed police, soldiers, doctors and aid to Ica, but an APTN cameraman trying to reach the city reported that traffic was paralyzed on the Pan American Highway by giant cracks in the pavement and fallen power lines. He said hundreds of vehicles were backed up.

News reports said dozens of people were crowding hospitals in the city seeking help even though the hospitals had suffered cracks and other structural damage.

Ica was blacked out as were smaller towns along the coast south of Lima. Residents of Chincha, a small town 90 miles southeast of Lima, reported that walls of homes had fallen in and numerous people had been hurt by falling bricks and broken glass.

An APTN cameraman who reached Chincha said the floors of the local hospital were covered with dead bodies.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday's earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at a depth of about 25 miles. Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterward.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coasts of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama. A tsunami watch was issued for the rest of Central America and Mexico and an advisory for Hawaii.

The center canceled all the alerts after about two hours, but it said the quake had caused an estimated 10-inch tsunami near the epicenter.

"It wasn't big enough to be destructive," said Stuart Weinstein, the center's assistant director.

An Associated Press photographer said that some homes had collapsed in the center of Lima and that many people had fled into the streets for safety. The capital shook for more than a minute.

"This is the strongest earthquake I've ever felt," said Maria Pilar Mena, 47, a sandwich vendor in Lima. "When the quake struck, I thought it would never end."

Antony Falconi, 27, was desperately trying to get public transportation home as hundreds of people milled on the streets flagging down buses in the dark.

"Who isn't going to be frightened?" Falconi said. "The earth moved differently this time. It made waves and the earth was like jelly."

The quake also knocked out telephone and mobile phone service in the capital and to the provinces, making it impossible to communicate with the Ica area.

Firefighters were called to put out a fire in a shopping center. State doctors called off a national strike that began on Wednesday to handle the emergency.

Police reported that large boulders shook loose from hills and were blocking the country's Central Highway, which heads east into the Andes mountains.

President Alan Garcia also said public schools would be closed Thursday because the buildings may be unsafe.

The last time a quake of magnitude 7.0 or larger struck Peru was in September 2005, when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Peru's northern jungle, killing four people. In 2001, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck near the southern Andean city of Arequipa, killing 71 people.

The latest Peru quake occurred in a subduction zone where one section of the Earth's crust dives under another, said USGS geophysicist Dale Grant at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.

Some of the world's biggest quakes strike in subduction zones including the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves.

absolutely, Spring.