MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Deadly magnitude 7.9 earthquake strikes central Peru

An earthquake of magnitude 7.9 struck off the coast of central Peru on Wednesday evening killing 337 people, injuring at least a thousand and triggering a tsunami warning for South America's central Pacific coast, according to the first reports from the media in the capital Lima.

The government declared a state of maximum alert, convened all off duty police, armed forces and health personnel back to their posts and President Alan Garcia on national broadcast called for calm although publicly admitting communications difficulties because the country's telephone system had collapsed. Lima television showed footage of traffic lights swaying with the quake and after the ground stopped shaking chunks of plaster that had fallen from buildings. Some Lima residents were sobbing after the temblor, while others appeared to be praying. The quake shook inland towns, as well as cities near the coast and the mountains. There were power outages in Lima and people ran into the streets in panic as the tremor shook office buildings. Many stayed outside, afraid to go back indoors after radio reports warned them to prepare for possible aftershocks. Peru, and most of the South American Pacific Coast are on border of two tectonic plates: The South American plate, which includes most of the continent, and the Nazca plate, which extends across the Pacific along most of the coast. The quake struck at 6:41 p.m. Lima time and was centered 61 kilometers west-northwest of Chincha Alta, Peru, and 161 kilometers south-southeast of Lima, according to the United States Geological Service. The epicenter was 25 located 47 kilometers below the Earth's surface. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a "regional tsunami warning and watch" for coastal areas of Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as well as a tsunami advisory for the U.S. state of Hawaii. But the centre stressed that it did not know if a tsunami had been generated. Callers to Radio Programas, Peru's main news station, said parts of several cities in southern Peru had been hit with blackouts