LATIN AMERICA

Sr's Jiovanna and Beth with teachers and  children from the nursery school in Bolivia.

                                                       
  The children from our street in Lima, trying to find space to cool themselves in
                                                                       the hot weather ... for them this is a grand swimming pool.

Barbara Cameron rndm (left) and Vigil rndm (near the woman with her child) with the HIV patients on their monthly retreat they always give them. (Lima, Peru)

A 15 year old  woman with her baby... the realiy of Turco- Alti Plano of Bolivia where our RNDMs are.

  5 July, 2001                EARTHQUAKE IN PERU

Suddenly, without warning, on Saturday 23 June at 4.00 in the afternoon, four mountain departments of Peru were hit by a ‘great’ earthquake - registering 8.1 on the Richter scale according to the US Geological Survey.  

Peru’s last major quake was in 1970; it registered 7.9 on the Richter scale and killed 70,000 people. Because of the inaccessibility of the mountain villages in this latest earthquake it is impossible at the moment to give a death toll, but it is expected to mount dramatically as rescuers reach the outlying villages. Moreover the hundreds of aftershocks have been frequent and considerable, so that the damage is continuing to pile up. 

The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions have been working in Peru for more than 25 years so we have been hearing some of the stories of the human trauma and material loss which is devastating the life of the people there at present. 

The two major towns hit by the earthquake were Arequipa and Moquegua. RNDMs work in both places. Thousands are homeless, and the tourist heart of Arequipa has been very badly damaged – the 1612 cathedral and the Santa Catalina monastery of the same era are a major source of tourist income for this second city of Peru. From Moquegua, Peru’s interim President, Valentin Paniagua, reported that 8 out of 10 homes have been damaged or destroyed. The people were poor and the homes were adobe brick or bamboo plastered with mud and collapsed easily; now they have nothing! Many houses of the poor on the pampa of Ilo were also destroyed. 

Candarave, where our Sisters used to have a mission, has been 90% destroyed. In some areas, like Carmana on the coast, the earthquake damage was compounded by tidal waves. Sister Barbara Cameron herself saw the people in Callao, the port city of Lima, crowding into the streets, running, carrying babies or small bundles, helping the elderly, because the sea had receded and fear of a possible tidal wave had panicked them. In fact this scene was being repeated all up and down the coast and the tidal wave reached more than a kilometre inland south of Lima, cutting off the Pan-American Highway, causing further devastation and loss of lives.  

Our Sisters from Ilo were the first to report in – late on the Saturday night; they confirmed that all our Sisters in Ilo and Arequipa were safe. It was impossible to make phone contact with Moquegua, so on Tuesday Sister Barbara flew in to the nearest airport, 2 hours by shared taxi from Moquegua along a road which had just been opened to small vehicles. She found Sister Loretta and all the children and workers safe; the Hogar Belen home, a 2-storey brick building, was still standing. But, some windows were shattered and there were several major cracks in the building so in the meantime for shelter they have moved the 140 children to a nearby church made of a flax type of material. They have put up some tents there as well to cater for the overflow.  [Hogar Belen is home to orphaned and abandoned children and needy single parents who come with their children and support the running of the home.]

Sister Loretta said that the noise of the quake, the terrifying movement of the ground and the swaying of their building  - both sideways and up and down - were incredible. During the more than one minute that the earthquake lasted there was a terrible noise and a violent wind full of dust that choked and blinded everyone as they tried to escape. Truly it was a moment out of hell! Since the major shake each tremor brings new fears. Hogar Belen normally feeds about 300 women and children each day and they have been using the main building for meals. But most families in that district are cooking their meals on fires outside their home and sleeping outside for fear of another quake. Fortunately the climate at Moquegua is mild; at 4000-ft altitude the people do not have the cold of the coast or of the high mountains in these coldest months of the year. 

Some new babies have already arrived at Hogar Belen. Two young mothers died but each of their babies was protected and saved. A third baby was brought to the Home, as its parents were unknown at that time. A dear little 2 and a half year old, Marta, had been brought in on the Monday because her mother and baby sister had been killed in the quake and the father was in a serious condition in the hospital. She is the dearest little happy-natured child during the day, but Sister Loretta said she cries for her mother at night. The grandfather of two of the boys at Hogar Belen had been killed in the quake in a small pueblo in the mountains. The father of another girl, a fisherman, had disappeared in the tidal wave, presumably washed out to sea. These are just a few of the many stories that will be told down the generations to come. 

Their Hogar Belen farm, about two kilometres away, which provides the daily bread, milk, vegetables and some meat, has also been devastated; but the Bishop has asked the Sisters to use their field to open a soup kitchen and to try to feed the people from the town too! Everyone is trying to help everyone else! 

It is wonderful to see the response of the Peruvians themselves throughout their own country in terms of donations and blankets and clothes and food products. There is also the generous response of some countries and of the Red Cross. It was sad though to hear that a helicopter taking help to the quake victims crashed with the loss of four lives; some had themselves just survived the quake. 

Donations for Peru disaster relief, given to the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, will go straight to our Sisters in Peru to help the poor of Arequipa, Moquegua and Ilo rebuild their lives again. 

Information sources:

The Tablet, London

Sisters Loretta, Barbara, Marilyn LeBlanc

Sister Marie Therese Ryder, Congregational Leadership Team

 Report from Latin America – Ilo, Peru <from Sister Diane Belisle>