Earthquake in northwestern Peru blamed for 1 death
Lima, Oct 5 (EFE).- A magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck the northwestern Peruvian coastal region of Piura early Wednesday, leaving at least one dead and two other people injured, officials said.
“One elderly person died in Paita (province), but it was because of a heart attack resulting from the seismic movement and fright,” the director of the National Civil Defense Institute in Piura, Cesar Chonate, told RPP radio.
Two other people were injured when they tried to move quickly during the earthquake, the official said, adding that the temblor did not cause major damage.
The Geophysics Institute of Peru (IGP) said the earthquake struck at 3.26 am at a depth of 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) and was centered just west of Sullana, a city located nearly 900 km north of Lima.
Four aftershocks were registered ranging in strength from magnitude-3.8 to magnitude-4.0, the IGP said.
The citizen security manager in Sullana, Vincenzo Leva, told RPP that the two injured people were women who fell during the earthquake and are receiving treatment in two hospitals in that city.
One is a 20-year-old who fell from the second floor of her building while trying to flee her home, while the other is a pregnant woman aged 39 who suffered injuries in a fall.
The National Emergency Operations Center (COEN) confirmed that the epicenter of the earthquake was in Sullana’s Miguel Checa district and that the temblor also was felt strongly in all eight provinces of Piura Department: Piura, Ayabaca, Huancabamba, Morropon, Paita, Sechura, Sullana and Talara.
COEN said it is coordinating with regional and local authorities, monitoring the situation and urging its local operations centers to remain on alert to respond to possible damage caused by the earthquake and its aftershocks.
The Peruvian navy’s Hydrography and Navigation Directorate said for its part that the temblor did not trigger a tsunami off the coast of northwestern Peru.
Peru is located in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where around 85 percent of the world’s seismic activity occurs.
EFE
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