Bolivian president visits quake-ravaged Peru, brings aid

August 27, 2007 - 0:0

PISCO (AP) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales toured Peru's quake-ravaged port of Pisco, meeting with Peru's leader and delivering 59 metric tons (65 tons) of water and medicine to victims.

""The nations of Peru and Bolivia have always lived in solidarity,"" Morales said Saturday, adding Peru also helped Bolivia during the deadly floods that swept its landlocked neighbor this year. ""This brotherhood of our peoples, we will never forget.""
Peruvian President Alan Garcia thanked Morales for his ""Latin American and fraternal gesture.""
Morales has also said he would donate half his monthly salary, about U.S.$950 (€700), to help the victims. His government has also sent a planeload of supplies and volunteers to Peru.
Also Saturday, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet sent two planes to Peru carrying aid and a medical team.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Garcia also accepted his offer to provide 100 plastic, premade houses to homeless victims and that the first half of the shipment will arrive within two weeks.
Last week an unforgiving wind lashes Juan Escate as he huddles around a bonfire with his three children, chilling him as he ponders how to fulfill his wife's dying plea.
magnitude-8 earthquake sent Escate's home on the outskirts of Pisco tumbling down, burying his wife Doris in rubble as she rushed their 16-year-old daughter to safety.
""Promise me you'll take care of my children,"" he says were his wife's last words.
Adults say they are given a handful of rice with some potatoes at midday. Children receive hot oatmeal for breakfast. Civil Defense has distributed tents to some survivors, but most are still in flimsy makeshift shelters near their homes made from pieces of wood and plastic sheets.
Escate's eyes are fixed on a giant pot of steaming rice and potatoes. The food is not for him and his hungry neighbors but for the group of soldiers protecting the homeless families from robbery — aid is more valuable now than personal belongings.
""I don't know what I'm going to do. My children were left without a mother and I have to take care of them alone,"" said Escate, his hands callused from years as a garbage collector. The 16-year-old daughter survived but suffered a fractured hip and is in a Lima hospital.
""She doesn't know her mother has left us,"" he said, sitting with his three sons, ages 5, 8 and 10. The youngest was crying, a thick wool blanket up to his eyes. The other two sat close to their father, listening intently.
More than 85 percent of the homes here were destroyed and at least 340 people were killed in this city of 90,000 according to Civil Defense officials. Over all, the earthquake killed 514 in several cities, according to the Civil Defense.
Juan Camasca, 37, said 50 of his neighbors were lucky enough to eat a small piece of chicken after one of the community members slaughtered his animals to feed them.
He said life is hardest on the outskirts of Pisco, where aid is pouring in and is available in more than a dozen points throughout the city, but passing by those just outside.
""The aid came for three days after the earthquake,"" Camasca said. ""They gave us water, hot water even, but they stopped coming."" He said he watched his friends unsuccessfully try to flag down trucks full of food that didn't even slow down.
Last week, a 6-week-old infant died of pneumonia after sleeping with her family outside their badly damaged home in the nearby province of Canete. Family members were worried that the house would topple over from one of the strong aftershocks, which continued for days. They complained that humanitarian aid did not reach them.
President Garcia announced this week that electricity had returned to much of the devastated region. But large areas of Pisco remain without lights. Bonfires illuminate the shadows in the tent cities on its outskirts. The government has said that rebuilding coastal towns will cost about $220 million.
Ten people are sleeping in Escate's shelter, lighted by a candle stuck precariously to a wooden plank. Two soldiers peek through the blanket that serves as the door, to make sure everyone is safe.
Food is scarce, and government aid has been patchy, especially to rural areas. UN Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom, the deputy emergency relief coordinator, said there is enough water, food, sheeting and blankets in the country, but that aid efforts here have been poorly organized.
""There've been many actors in place, and there hasn't been good enough coordination so that the direction the government has given has been suitably followed,"" she said Friday