MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Evo Morales arrived to Peru with 19 tons of medicines

Pte. Morales arrived to Pisco

Bolivia's President Evo Morales arrived in Pisco today to distribute 19 tons of medicines, blankets and drinking water, the second visit by a Latin American leader to the disaster area. Colombia's Alvaro Uribe traveled to the area last weekend.

Donor nations and relief agencies have pledged a total of $40 million to date. Peru, where half the population of 27 million lives on $1 a day, has suffered three destructive earthquakes in the past decade. It's Latin America's seventh-largest economy. Meantime Peru's government appointed businessman Julio Favre to head a $200 million reconstruction effort after the country's worst earthquake in more than 30 years. Favre, former head of Peru's largest business association Confiep and chief executive officer of the Andean country's largest poultry producer Redondos SA, will also manage the auction of a concession to operate the southern port of Pisco, which was damaged by the quake, Peru's President Alan Garcia said today. About 80,000 people were left without shelter by the magnitude-8 quake on Aug. 15, killing at least 510 people and injuring 1,600 on the southern coast. The government has established a 300 million soles ($95 million) fund to date to finance the rebuilding of homes, schools and roads, which will employ an estimated 8,000 townspeople. ''He will be the pilot, promoter and engine of reconstruction,'' Garcia told reporters in Lima. ''This will also involve mayors and top-level businessmen who can articulate works with the help of big companies and their technicians.'' The board of the reconstruction fund will include central bank director and exporter Jose Chlimper and Jaime Caceres, chief executive officer of AFP Integra, Peru's largest pension fund, Favre said. None of them will be paid a salary, he said.