A Cataclysm Strikes Peru!
1/5/08
“QUAKE LEAVES 100 DEAD IN CAJACAY.” “LANDSLIDE BURIES 18: SAYAN.” “40 DIE BURIED BY ROCKS IN CAJATAMBO.” “YUNGAY TOTALLY DESTROYED.”
Any one of these headlines would be enough to arrest its reader with shocking concern. But that they should all appear in rapid succession, bringing reports of the western hemisphere’s worst natural disaster in recorded history, strains credibility. When the final tally is known, if indeed it will ever be accurately known, the toll taken by the violent earthquake that rocked Peru on Sunday afternoon, May 31, may well exceed 60,000 dead!
The results of the quake, flashed on television screens and in newspaper headlines throughout the world, defied imagination. Chimbote, a thriving fishing and industrial port of over 100,000 inhabitants, was 85 percent destroyed. Huaraz, Caraz and Yungay, nestled in the travel-poster setting of the beautiful Huaylas valley, were in ruins; Yungay being completely swept away and its remains buried beneath a sea of mud and ooze.
The capital, Lima, too, felt the quake at 3:24 that Sunday afternoon. But when a quick check of different sections of the city showed little property damage and only three deaths, the citizenry began congratulating itself on having experienced just another susto (scare). They settled back to watch the opening game of the world soccer tournament being held in Mexico and televised via satellite around the earth. Lima bedded down for the night totally unaware of the tragedy in its neighboring cities to the north.
Chimbote and Casma
Not until Monday morning did the first reports reach Lima, as vehicular traffic along the Pan-American Highway began to arrive. A member of the office staff of the Watch Tower Society and his wife were returning to Lima after a short vacation with friends in Trujillo, and they were among the first to reach the capital with a report of what had taken place. Let him narrate his experience.
“The drive from Trujillo to Chimbote had been pleasant but, as Lima was yet another five-hour drive away, we decided to stop and freshen up a bit before continuing our journey. We pulled up in front of the Hotel Chimú, overlooking the placid Chimbote bay. The engine had hardly died when everything was gripped in the throes of a violent upheaval. The automobile lurched frantically from side to side and up and down. The hotel, an imposing three-story building, leaped and twisted about. Windowpanes shattered to the ground. I backed the car into the middle of the parking area and there we rode it out.
“The once-calm bay was seized with giant choppy waves, and the beach began to sink and fall away toward the ocean. Large fissures opened in the street. The front wheels of one car dropped into a wide crack that had opened up suddenly beneath them. A glance toward the mid-town section revealed a rising cloud of gray dust that reached a height of one hundred feet blanketing the entire city.
“All about us the city lay in ruins. Frantic cries of pain and grief pierced the air. In panic, people ran to and fro searching the debris for loved ones, calling names, listening for voices. A father ran aimlessly down the street, the lifeless form of his little boy draped in his trembling arms. Many were still too stunned to do anything except stand in the street casting questioning glances about them.
“The quake lasted but forty-five seconds—a short span, indeed, in any circumstance but an earthquake. In those fleeting, prolonged, interminable forty-five seconds, there were drastic changes in the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons.
“When the initial fright had passed, the thought came to us: ‘How had our Christian brothers, Jehovah’s witnesses, in Chimbote fared?’ They were probably having their weekly Sunday meeting. So we made our way to the nearest Kingdom Hall. There are three congregations in Chimbote.
“Only five minutes had elapsed when we arrived at the Kingdom Hall. It was demolished, but the whole congregation was safe and alive! A steel girder had remained suspended at one end by its reinforced concrete column. Though the roof had caved in on either side, it had remained sufficiently high to permit all to crawl out to safety. Only minor injuries were received by a few.
“Shortly, someone arrived and reported that the roof had held at their Kingdom Hall. Although some had sustained fractures, it appeared that only one young girl was critically injured. Since the third congregation had not been holding its meeting, nothing was known immediately as to their plight.
“All the Witnesses had lost their homes and belongings, being left with only the clothes on their backs. It was later discovered that only one Witness and the wife of a Witness had perished in Chimbote.
“No telephone lines remained. So we decided to return to Trujillo and from there notify the Watch Tower office in Peru by telephone. We did not know at the time that Trujillo, too, had been badly hit. When we arrived at the mountain pass north of Chimbote, we found it filled with huge rocks and impassable. So we turned around and headed on to Lima.
“The first town south of Chimbote was Casma. It took about thirty minutes to find the Kingdom Hall where the Witnesses had been holding their meeting. None of them were found. However, we learned that one had been critically injured when a wall of the hall fell in on him. He died that night.
“Night had fallen by the time we resumed our race to Lima. Shortly we found the road blocked by huge boulders. Our car was small enough to negotiate the road blockage, but when we got to the Casma Bridge we were unable to get over the two-foot rise caused by the sinking of the macadam approach. We returned to a safe spot out in the open, away from possible falling rocks, and waited the long night out. We could not sleep. All through the night repeated shakes and tremors, accompanied by an unearthly rumble, continued to rock our car.
“It was dawn on Monday morning when finally the bridge was opened to traffic. So we were able to drive the remainder of the four-hour trip to Lima.”
Relief Organized
Immediately telephone calls were made to all of Jehovah’s witnesses in Lima who had phones. Instructions were given to gather food and clothing, blankets and medicines, and to pass the word on to others to do the same. The loving response was immediate. That night the lobby of the Watch Tower office in Lima began filling up with bags of clothing and boxes of foodstuffs. Money was received in donations large and small.
So great was the response that by midnight Tuesday, just thirty-six hours after receiving the word, a convoy of five vehicles including a ten-ton truck left Lima headed for Casma and Chimbote with relief supplies! They carried blankets, clothing, food and 275 gallons of drinking water, as well as kitchen and cafeteria equipment and canvas tenting materials. The Watch Tower caravan was among the first to reach these stricken areas with aid.
A truckload of provisions was left in Casma. All the Witnesses there had gathered at the property of a Witness on the outskirts of town where no damage had been registered.
In Chimbote the Witnesses were found in good spirits in spite of the great loss. In the two days following the earthquake they had cleaned up the debris from the Kingdom Hall and put up walls of woven matting all around it. This made for a secure place to leave provisions until they could be distributed.
The two other congregations in Chimbote had set up camp on a hill overlooking the city. When members of the expedition arrived they found a tiny city established. It was neat and orderly and functioning harmoniously. Tasks had been assigned. In the mornings the Witnesses cleaned up the debris from around their fallen homes. And in the afternoons they visited the homes of stricken people offering consolation from the Bible. A school had been set up to keep the children occupied.
Soon the Witnesses were enjoying their first warm meal in three days. That night they were able to sleep warmly under the blankets and heavy clothing that had been provided. Having cleared the site of the Kingdom Hall, the congregation continued its meeting schedule without interruption. The Witnesses had given attention first to their Kingdom Hall, leaving their own homes until later!
The Huaylas Valley
But a large and foreboding question mark still hung over the city of Huaraz. No word had been received from the congregation there. Nor had any news been received from Caraz, farther north of Huaraz, where there is an isolated group of Jehovah’s witnesses. Even after eight days no word had been received concerning the Witnesses in the Huaylas valley. As the reports of the magnitude of the disaster continued to pour in, we really feared for the plight of our fellow Witnesses there.
The winding roads to Huaraz and Caraz that climb tortuously into the Andean “altiplano” were never good at their very best. Now they were practically obliterated. A monumental task befell the corps of Army road engineers to open them as soon as possible.
True, aircraft had been dropping in supplies. But due to their restricted payload, as well as the risk of lives and the great expense, it was vital that ground transportation into the area be opened up. Already four helicopters and one plane had gone down, with eight persons killed. Hundreds of tons of relief goods were waiting to reach the stricken ones as soon as the road could be opened.
The road crews worked around the clock in an almost superhuman race against time. One convoy sent by Jehovah’s witnesses was thwarted by the still-blocked roadway, and the supplies were carried on to Casma and Chimbote. Finally, on Monday, June 8, word was officially received that the road would at last be opened. Another convoy was organized, and it was among the first fifteen vehicles waiting a mile or so behind the road crews, moving forward as each new stretch of road was opened up.
One member of the convoy observes: “As we restlessly tried to catch some sleep in the bitter cold while waiting for the road to open, we were mindful of our fellow Witnesses and their little children who would also be trying to sleep. But they would have no roof over their heads, and few blankets and little clothing to ward off the freezing temperatures.”
At last the way was free and the caravan continued its dusty climb into the freezing, rarefied atmosphere of the heights above!
The Search
The warming rays of the dawning sun found the caravan winding its way at last down into the valley where Huaraz had once stood. The total destruction of villages that were passed along the way brought somber thoughts to the minds of the travelers. Surely a destruction so complete must have wiped out some of the Witnesses, if not all of them.
The convoy broke ranks with the other trucks and began the task of trying to locate the Witnesses. The city lay in ruins. All around its perimeter, camps of refugees had sprung up. Rumors and leads were followed disappointingly to their dead ends.
Using walkie-talkies to keep in touch, two members of the convoy threaded their ways among the camps from tent to hut to lean-to, inquiring. At sundown two separate leads brought them almost simultaneously to the campsite of Jehovah’s witnesses. Tears of joy streaked down cheeks as they embraced one another. All of Jehovah’s witnesses and their immediate family members, some sixty persons in all, were alive and safe!
Little by little the tale of survival began to unfold. Some had been able to reach open ground while others sought refuge in their doorways, that part of a building that is most often left standing. There were close calls.
One Witness dug frantically to uncover his young son who had been buried beneath two heavy adobe walls. Fighting suffocation from the dust and dirt, the boy had the presence of mind to limit his breathing until his father could clear the debris from around his face and head. He got off with only a fissured jawbone.
An eleven-year-old daughter of a Witness had gone out on her bicycle to buy bread for the evening meal. Her mother, on the second floor of her home in the very middle of the most devastated area, rode out the quake under a doorway while the rest of the house crumbled down around her. A search was made for the little girl. Two hours after the quake her uncle stumbled onto several pieces of bread among the rubble of the street. Then the mangled part of a bicycle, and just beyond under large adobe bricks and roofing tiles, the missing child. She is now recuperating in a Lima hospital from multiple fractures of arm, leg and pelvis.
Utter Desolation
Ten thousand others were not as fortunate. For it was officially estimated that many persons were still buried in the narrow streets of Huaraz under tons of debris.
When the first tremors were felt, thousands scrambled for the safety of the open spaces. They never had a chance. Their own homes came tumbling down upon them.
The rubble in the streets now reaches the height of what once was the second floor, so it is difficult to tell where the streets were.
Reports from farther down the valley, revealed yet greater and more complete destruction. Apparently a gigantic chunk fell away from the north face of Mount Huascarán into Lake Yanganuco, spilling its waters over into the canyons leading to the Huaylas valley below. The resultant onrush of water, mud, stones and ice reached the city of Yungay and its neighboring town, Ranrahirca, burying the two and claiming over 20,000 lives! All that remains visible of the city of Yungay are the tops of four tall palm trees that once marked the central “Plaza de Armas.” Those who might have survived the terrible quake were killed just ten minutes later by the inundation.
The city of Caraz was spared total destruction from this terrible avalanche when it stopped just short of the city limits. Though the road there was still unopened, a message finally arrived from the Witnesses in Caraz. They were all safe!
From all over the 22,000 square miles shaken by the cataclysm came stories of terrible desolation. Two hundred and fifty cities, towns, villages and hamlets reduced to rubble, rendering from 800,000 to 1,000,000 homeless. Jehovah’s witnesses are indeed happy that they need count only three dead and very few injured among the approximately 400 Witnesses that live and work in the areas hardest hit.
Recovery
Now the mammoth task remains of caring for the injured, burying the dead, finding homes for the hundreds of orphans left in its wake and rebuilding the cities that lay in waste. But there is confidence this will be accomplished. For the Peruvian has learned resilience in living with the ever-present possibility of earthquakes and avalanches.
In this century alone twelve major quakes have rocked Peru. And many other areas of the earth have likewise been shaken by numerous major quakes since 1914, with death tolls ranging from hundreds to close to two hundred thousand in each of these disasters. Jehovah’s witnesses see in these cataclysms further evidence that we are living in the last days of this system of things. For Jesus Christ specially said that “earthquakes in one place after another” would mark “the conclusion of the system of things.”—Matt. 24:3, 7.
From around the world has come aid to assist the earthquake victims to recover from this disaster. Jehovah’s witnesses in New York city donated well over ten tons of clothing, categorized it for easy distribution, packed it in over a thousand cartons, and sent it to Peru early in June. Such efforts have helped Peruvians recover from the western hemisphere’s worst natural disaster in recorded history.
Any one of these headlines would be enough to arrest its reader with shocking concern. But that they should all appear in rapid succession, bringing reports of the western hemisphere’s worst natural disaster in recorded history, strains credibility. When the final tally is known, if indeed it will ever be accurately known, the toll taken by the violent earthquake that rocked Peru on Sunday afternoon, May 31, may well exceed 60,000 dead!
The results of the quake, flashed on television screens and in newspaper headlines throughout the world, defied imagination. Chimbote, a thriving fishing and industrial port of over 100,000 inhabitants, was 85 percent destroyed. Huaraz, Caraz and Yungay, nestled in the travel-poster setting of the beautiful Huaylas valley, were in ruins; Yungay being completely swept away and its remains buried beneath a sea of mud and ooze.
The capital, Lima, too, felt the quake at 3:24 that Sunday afternoon. But when a quick check of different sections of the city showed little property damage and only three deaths, the citizenry began congratulating itself on having experienced just another susto (scare). They settled back to watch the opening game of the world soccer tournament being held in Mexico and televised via satellite around the earth. Lima bedded down for the night totally unaware of the tragedy in its neighboring cities to the north.
Chimbote and Casma
Not until Monday morning did the first reports reach Lima, as vehicular traffic along the Pan-American Highway began to arrive. A member of the office staff of the Watch Tower Society and his wife were returning to Lima after a short vacation with friends in Trujillo, and they were among the first to reach the capital with a report of what had taken place. Let him narrate his experience.
“The drive from Trujillo to Chimbote had been pleasant but, as Lima was yet another five-hour drive away, we decided to stop and freshen up a bit before continuing our journey. We pulled up in front of the Hotel Chimú, overlooking the placid Chimbote bay. The engine had hardly died when everything was gripped in the throes of a violent upheaval. The automobile lurched frantically from side to side and up and down. The hotel, an imposing three-story building, leaped and twisted about. Windowpanes shattered to the ground. I backed the car into the middle of the parking area and there we rode it out.
“The once-calm bay was seized with giant choppy waves, and the beach began to sink and fall away toward the ocean. Large fissures opened in the street. The front wheels of one car dropped into a wide crack that had opened up suddenly beneath them. A glance toward the mid-town section revealed a rising cloud of gray dust that reached a height of one hundred feet blanketing the entire city.
“All about us the city lay in ruins. Frantic cries of pain and grief pierced the air. In panic, people ran to and fro searching the debris for loved ones, calling names, listening for voices. A father ran aimlessly down the street, the lifeless form of his little boy draped in his trembling arms. Many were still too stunned to do anything except stand in the street casting questioning glances about them.
“The quake lasted but forty-five seconds—a short span, indeed, in any circumstance but an earthquake. In those fleeting, prolonged, interminable forty-five seconds, there were drastic changes in the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons.
“When the initial fright had passed, the thought came to us: ‘How had our Christian brothers, Jehovah’s witnesses, in Chimbote fared?’ They were probably having their weekly Sunday meeting. So we made our way to the nearest Kingdom Hall. There are three congregations in Chimbote.
“Only five minutes had elapsed when we arrived at the Kingdom Hall. It was demolished, but the whole congregation was safe and alive! A steel girder had remained suspended at one end by its reinforced concrete column. Though the roof had caved in on either side, it had remained sufficiently high to permit all to crawl out to safety. Only minor injuries were received by a few.
“Shortly, someone arrived and reported that the roof had held at their Kingdom Hall. Although some had sustained fractures, it appeared that only one young girl was critically injured. Since the third congregation had not been holding its meeting, nothing was known immediately as to their plight.
“All the Witnesses had lost their homes and belongings, being left with only the clothes on their backs. It was later discovered that only one Witness and the wife of a Witness had perished in Chimbote.
“No telephone lines remained. So we decided to return to Trujillo and from there notify the Watch Tower office in Peru by telephone. We did not know at the time that Trujillo, too, had been badly hit. When we arrived at the mountain pass north of Chimbote, we found it filled with huge rocks and impassable. So we turned around and headed on to Lima.
“The first town south of Chimbote was Casma. It took about thirty minutes to find the Kingdom Hall where the Witnesses had been holding their meeting. None of them were found. However, we learned that one had been critically injured when a wall of the hall fell in on him. He died that night.
“Night had fallen by the time we resumed our race to Lima. Shortly we found the road blocked by huge boulders. Our car was small enough to negotiate the road blockage, but when we got to the Casma Bridge we were unable to get over the two-foot rise caused by the sinking of the macadam approach. We returned to a safe spot out in the open, away from possible falling rocks, and waited the long night out. We could not sleep. All through the night repeated shakes and tremors, accompanied by an unearthly rumble, continued to rock our car.
“It was dawn on Monday morning when finally the bridge was opened to traffic. So we were able to drive the remainder of the four-hour trip to Lima.”
Relief Organized
Immediately telephone calls were made to all of Jehovah’s witnesses in Lima who had phones. Instructions were given to gather food and clothing, blankets and medicines, and to pass the word on to others to do the same. The loving response was immediate. That night the lobby of the Watch Tower office in Lima began filling up with bags of clothing and boxes of foodstuffs. Money was received in donations large and small.
So great was the response that by midnight Tuesday, just thirty-six hours after receiving the word, a convoy of five vehicles including a ten-ton truck left Lima headed for Casma and Chimbote with relief supplies! They carried blankets, clothing, food and 275 gallons of drinking water, as well as kitchen and cafeteria equipment and canvas tenting materials. The Watch Tower caravan was among the first to reach these stricken areas with aid.
A truckload of provisions was left in Casma. All the Witnesses there had gathered at the property of a Witness on the outskirts of town where no damage had been registered.
In Chimbote the Witnesses were found in good spirits in spite of the great loss. In the two days following the earthquake they had cleaned up the debris from the Kingdom Hall and put up walls of woven matting all around it. This made for a secure place to leave provisions until they could be distributed.
The two other congregations in Chimbote had set up camp on a hill overlooking the city. When members of the expedition arrived they found a tiny city established. It was neat and orderly and functioning harmoniously. Tasks had been assigned. In the mornings the Witnesses cleaned up the debris from around their fallen homes. And in the afternoons they visited the homes of stricken people offering consolation from the Bible. A school had been set up to keep the children occupied.
Soon the Witnesses were enjoying their first warm meal in three days. That night they were able to sleep warmly under the blankets and heavy clothing that had been provided. Having cleared the site of the Kingdom Hall, the congregation continued its meeting schedule without interruption. The Witnesses had given attention first to their Kingdom Hall, leaving their own homes until later!
The Huaylas Valley
But a large and foreboding question mark still hung over the city of Huaraz. No word had been received from the congregation there. Nor had any news been received from Caraz, farther north of Huaraz, where there is an isolated group of Jehovah’s witnesses. Even after eight days no word had been received concerning the Witnesses in the Huaylas valley. As the reports of the magnitude of the disaster continued to pour in, we really feared for the plight of our fellow Witnesses there.
The winding roads to Huaraz and Caraz that climb tortuously into the Andean “altiplano” were never good at their very best. Now they were practically obliterated. A monumental task befell the corps of Army road engineers to open them as soon as possible.
True, aircraft had been dropping in supplies. But due to their restricted payload, as well as the risk of lives and the great expense, it was vital that ground transportation into the area be opened up. Already four helicopters and one plane had gone down, with eight persons killed. Hundreds of tons of relief goods were waiting to reach the stricken ones as soon as the road could be opened.
The road crews worked around the clock in an almost superhuman race against time. One convoy sent by Jehovah’s witnesses was thwarted by the still-blocked roadway, and the supplies were carried on to Casma and Chimbote. Finally, on Monday, June 8, word was officially received that the road would at last be opened. Another convoy was organized, and it was among the first fifteen vehicles waiting a mile or so behind the road crews, moving forward as each new stretch of road was opened up.
One member of the convoy observes: “As we restlessly tried to catch some sleep in the bitter cold while waiting for the road to open, we were mindful of our fellow Witnesses and their little children who would also be trying to sleep. But they would have no roof over their heads, and few blankets and little clothing to ward off the freezing temperatures.”
At last the way was free and the caravan continued its dusty climb into the freezing, rarefied atmosphere of the heights above!
The Search
The warming rays of the dawning sun found the caravan winding its way at last down into the valley where Huaraz had once stood. The total destruction of villages that were passed along the way brought somber thoughts to the minds of the travelers. Surely a destruction so complete must have wiped out some of the Witnesses, if not all of them.
The convoy broke ranks with the other trucks and began the task of trying to locate the Witnesses. The city lay in ruins. All around its perimeter, camps of refugees had sprung up. Rumors and leads were followed disappointingly to their dead ends.
Using walkie-talkies to keep in touch, two members of the convoy threaded their ways among the camps from tent to hut to lean-to, inquiring. At sundown two separate leads brought them almost simultaneously to the campsite of Jehovah’s witnesses. Tears of joy streaked down cheeks as they embraced one another. All of Jehovah’s witnesses and their immediate family members, some sixty persons in all, were alive and safe!
Little by little the tale of survival began to unfold. Some had been able to reach open ground while others sought refuge in their doorways, that part of a building that is most often left standing. There were close calls.
One Witness dug frantically to uncover his young son who had been buried beneath two heavy adobe walls. Fighting suffocation from the dust and dirt, the boy had the presence of mind to limit his breathing until his father could clear the debris from around his face and head. He got off with only a fissured jawbone.
An eleven-year-old daughter of a Witness had gone out on her bicycle to buy bread for the evening meal. Her mother, on the second floor of her home in the very middle of the most devastated area, rode out the quake under a doorway while the rest of the house crumbled down around her. A search was made for the little girl. Two hours after the quake her uncle stumbled onto several pieces of bread among the rubble of the street. Then the mangled part of a bicycle, and just beyond under large adobe bricks and roofing tiles, the missing child. She is now recuperating in a Lima hospital from multiple fractures of arm, leg and pelvis.
Utter Desolation
Ten thousand others were not as fortunate. For it was officially estimated that many persons were still buried in the narrow streets of Huaraz under tons of debris.
When the first tremors were felt, thousands scrambled for the safety of the open spaces. They never had a chance. Their own homes came tumbling down upon them.
The rubble in the streets now reaches the height of what once was the second floor, so it is difficult to tell where the streets were.
Reports from farther down the valley, revealed yet greater and more complete destruction. Apparently a gigantic chunk fell away from the north face of Mount Huascarán into Lake Yanganuco, spilling its waters over into the canyons leading to the Huaylas valley below. The resultant onrush of water, mud, stones and ice reached the city of Yungay and its neighboring town, Ranrahirca, burying the two and claiming over 20,000 lives! All that remains visible of the city of Yungay are the tops of four tall palm trees that once marked the central “Plaza de Armas.” Those who might have survived the terrible quake were killed just ten minutes later by the inundation.
The city of Caraz was spared total destruction from this terrible avalanche when it stopped just short of the city limits. Though the road there was still unopened, a message finally arrived from the Witnesses in Caraz. They were all safe!
From all over the 22,000 square miles shaken by the cataclysm came stories of terrible desolation. Two hundred and fifty cities, towns, villages and hamlets reduced to rubble, rendering from 800,000 to 1,000,000 homeless. Jehovah’s witnesses are indeed happy that they need count only three dead and very few injured among the approximately 400 Witnesses that live and work in the areas hardest hit.
Recovery
Now the mammoth task remains of caring for the injured, burying the dead, finding homes for the hundreds of orphans left in its wake and rebuilding the cities that lay in waste. But there is confidence this will be accomplished. For the Peruvian has learned resilience in living with the ever-present possibility of earthquakes and avalanches.
In this century alone twelve major quakes have rocked Peru. And many other areas of the earth have likewise been shaken by numerous major quakes since 1914, with death tolls ranging from hundreds to close to two hundred thousand in each of these disasters. Jehovah’s witnesses see in these cataclysms further evidence that we are living in the last days of this system of things. For Jesus Christ specially said that “earthquakes in one place after another” would mark “the conclusion of the system of things.”—Matt. 24:3, 7.
From around the world has come aid to assist the earthquake victims to recover from this disaster. Jehovah’s witnesses in New York city donated well over ten tons of clothing, categorized it for easy distribution, packed it in over a thousand cartons, and sent it to Peru early in June. Such efforts have helped Peruvians recover from the western hemisphere’s worst natural disaster in recorded history.
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