Church in the World

Church leads Peru relief operation

Peru's Catholic Church is playing a central role in the operation to bring relief to the victims of the earthquake that struck off Peru's southern coast on 15 August. The 'quake, with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale, and lasting two minutes, destroyed 70 per cent of the town of Pisco and severely damaged Cañete, Ica and Chincha. The provisional death toll is around 500, with some 1,000 injured, and 35,000 families left homeless.

The resources of the Church, and its national relief agency, Caritas, have been indispensable because of the weakness of the official relief agencies and local government structures, which struggled to cope in the first two days. An almost total breakdown of telecommunications and the severing of the Pan-American Highway between Lima and the earthquake zone severely delayed the delivery of aid.

Church leaders acted immediately, issuing an appeal on 16 August. Caritas  and the other arm of the Church's social action operation, the Social Action Commission or CEAS, joined forces to collect relief supplies and organise a delivery system through local Caritas offices, parishes and seminaries. The network of parishes in Ica is the backbone of the operation there. Dioceses from north to south of the country, coast, highland and jungle, have organised collections.

 Prominent businesses are also channelling relief and donations through Caritas, which is trusted when official bodies often are not. Jorge Lafosse, director of Caritas Peru, spoke of people "orphaned by the state". Caritas had strict and transparent procedures in the handling of aid, he said.

Speaking to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, which is sending £25,000 in emergency aid to the region, Bishop Guido Breña López of Ica said almost 130 bodies had so far been recovered from the rubble of San Clemente's church in Pisco city. Among the survivors was the church's priest who was trapped in the rubble but stayed alive for two days thanks to an air pocket, before being pulled to safety.

In Sicuani, in the southern Andes, the courtyard of the diocese's radio station was stacked with maize and beans as people streamed in with contributions.

By Monday 20 August, Caritas Peru reported that it had sent 215 tonnes of relief - food, water, clothes, blankets and medicines - to the affected area. Nevertheless, five days after the earthquake, aid had still not reached highland areas, such as Castrovirrey, in Huancavelica department, where 4,000 people were homeless.

Pope Benedict XVI directed the Pontifical Council, Cor Unum, to send US$200,000 in emergency aid for earthquake victims and assured the injured and homeless of the entire Church's "spiritual and material closeness". He said the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB, would be a personal witness of his own sentiments when he visited Peru for a previously scheduled appointment to open the country's ninth Eucharistic Congress, which runs from 25 to 28 August.