Environment, Feature, Natural Disasters

Earthquake Drill May 31st

Earthquake Drill May 31st - Peru News
School students form circles in the main courtyard as part of their earthquake drill. Source: RPP

A nationwide earthquake drill is to be held this Friday, May 31, which is Natural Disaster Education and Reflection Day.

The drill is to be the simulation of an 8.5 earthquake followed by a tsunami with 10-meter waves.

The annual preparedness program expects the active participation of citizens across the country, and will include activities by Indeci (civil defense) staff, government health officers, and the police and armed forces.

Hernando Tavera, director of Peru's Geophysical Institute, IGP. Source: RPP
Hernando Tavera, director of Peru’s Geophysical Institute, IGP. Source: RPP

Hernando Tavera, director of Peru’s Geophysical Institute, IGP, warns that a major earthquake could occur in Lima and along the coast without warning, given that quakes are cyclical and there has been a long period of “silence” since any major tremor has occurred on the coast.  The last major quake was in 2007, which destroyed much of the port town of Pisco, south of Lima.

Limeños should take precautions, Tavera said in an interview on ATV, because energy that has been accumulating in the tectonic plates since 1746 could be released at any moment and cause a catastrophe.  In 1746, an earthquake destroyed much of Lima and the ensuing tsunami wiped out the port of Callao.

In Lima, the major danger is poor construction, including in the older sections where maintenance is almost non-existent but even more so in the newer districts of low-income housing, particularly on the unstable hillsides and sand dunes in the east and south areas of the city, where land invasions and land trafficking have gone largely unsupervised by municipal authorities.

“We learned from yesterday’s earthquake and from the one in 2007 (in Pisco, south of Lima) that if the houses cannot withstand the jolting, they can collapse and that is when people’s lives are lost,” Tavara said.

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