Peruvian government to hire quake victims to clear rubble
PISCO, Peru (AP) -- Basic water and power service returned to parts of Peru's quake-ravaged central coast Tuesday, as President Alan Garcia promised jobs and financial aid to survivors.
Speaking in the fishing port of Pisco, where last week's deadly magnitude-8 quake destroyed 85 percent of homes, Garcia said half the city's electric-powered wells were now operational, along with all the wells in nearby Ica and Chincha.
Garcia also said electricity had been restored to 90 percent of Ica and 60 percent of Chincha. He did not mention Pisco, but power had returned to at least several neighborhoods including around the central plaza.
The government launched a program to employ some 8,000 Pisco, Ica and Chincha residents to help clear tons of rubble from adobe homes that crumbled in the quake, which has killed at least 540 people.
Workers will receive about $130 a month, paid in advance, the Labor Ministry said in a statement.
"The people are starting to get their lives back together," Garcia told journalists while surveying the damage in Pisco. "There is only one Pisco and it will again be as big and strong as it always was."
Garcia has said the streets of Pisco will be cleared within two weeks.
Late Monday, he issued a decree giving $250 grants to individuals who accompanied injured relatives and friends to Lima for hospital care, apparently to cover their travel expenses.
Garcia said that nearly 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid had reached the city, and that helicopters will be used to speed up the delivery of supplies to rural areas where aid has been slow to reach.
Thousands of people were still sleeping outside in makeshift tents, huddling against the cold ocean winds known as "Paracas" -- which are usually strongest in August, the end of the austral winter.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
