LIMA, PERU — The death toll in a massive earthquake that battered Peru's Pacific coast soared toward 500 on Thursday as rescue workers struggled to reach scenes of devastation and stunned victims appealed for medical aid, water and coffins.
Teams dug beneath the rubble in the cities of Pisco and Ica and the nearby town of Chincha, all situated near the epicenter of the magnitude 8.0 quake south of the capital, Lima. The damage and casualties appeared to be concentrated in those three communities, which also lost power and telephone service.
"Our city is destroyed," Mayor Juan Mendoza of Pisco, a port city of about 130,000 people, said, sobbing in an interview with Peruvian news media. "The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets."
Mendoza estimated that 70% of the structures in his city had been leveled. Other officials said about 200 people were believed to have died in Pisco.
Authorities also said that a majority of buildings were destroyed in the city of Ica, just to the southeast. The mayor of that city, Mariano Nacimiento, estimated the death toll there at 70 and said that about 800 residents had been injured.
"We need medicines, tents, food and whatever help there is," he told Peruvian media.
The National Civil Defense Institute's director of operations, Aristides Mussio, told reporters that the overall death toll stood at 437 and that more than 16,000 homes had been destroyed.
The quake struck Wednesday evening when many people were in church for services marking the Roman Catholic holy day of the Feast of the Assumption.
After an evening when many strong aftershocks were recorded, residents of the quake- ravaged region awoke Thursday to a catastrophic panorama of collapsed buildings, ruined roadways, fallen lampposts and dazed survivors.
"Sir, we are afraid," Marina Yupanki, 32, an Ica resident whose adobe home had been destroyed, told a reporter for Canal N, a cable TV news station. "We are sick; we are seeking help for our children."
Others said they were afraid to return to their homes, worried about new temblors and collapses.
"We are not going back in our houses again," Clara Obregon, 65, of Ica, told Canal N. "We plan to stay out here on the streets. We want tents and something to eat. We haven't eaten."
President Alan Garcia flew to Pisco to find residents pleading for medical aid, water and coffins. Many corpses remained on the streets early Thursday, in some cases watched over by relatives, the media reported.
