By IANS/EFE,
Lima: A magnitude-6.9 earthquake brought down buildings in the southern region of Peru’s Arequipa province Wednesday, authorities said. No casualty has been reported.
“Some adobe houses collapsed in Caraveli district,” district chief Santiago Neyra told RPP radio.
Also, in the Chala district part of the Panamericana Sur highway collapsed, preventing traffic from moving along a stretch of that important roadway two km long, police said.
The director of School 40262 in Acari, Nilhuar Escobedo, told RPP that the quake broke windows and cracked walls in several classrooms and an auditorium.
So far, no injuries or worse have been reported, but police were deployed to the school to help with the evacuation of the 400 students, Escobedo said.
In addition, he said that there is still “rather a lot of panic and concern” among local residents because there are rumors that some homes have collapsed in the northern part of Acari, which borders on the Lomas district, where the temblor’s epicentre was located.
The quake struck at 11:42 a.m. in Arequipa and several other Peruvian cities, including Lima, Moquegua, Ica, Tacna and Huancavelica.
According to the Peruvian Geophysical Institute, the quake’s epicentre was situated 30 km below the earth’s surface.
Peru’s last major temblor, a magnitude-7.9 quake, occurred in 2007, killing some 500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage and economic losses.