Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310366
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The roof of a cathedral collapsed when a 48-second quake of magnitude 5.8 struck Tuesday night in the Amazon region of northern Peru. Seismic experts said that the temblor was centered 15 miles southeast of the city of Moyobamba, about 400 miles northeast of Lima.
A few hours later, southeastern Europe was rattled by a 6.5-magnitude earthquake, which struck Wednesday afternoon, swaying buildings from Moscow to Istanbul, Turkey. The epicenter was placed in the Vrancea region near the Soviet-Romanian border.
Gen. Jorge Ferreyros, Peru's civil defense chief, said that Tuesday's death toll included 27 in Moyobamba, 25 in Rioja, 19 in Nuevo Cajamarca and 12 in Soritor. He said that another 494 people were injured, mostly children, and that 40 people were missing. He estimated that 800 people had been left homeless.
Another civil defense official, Ciro Ugarte, said that the death toll "could rise considerably" when more reports are received from the Amazon basin on the eastern slope of the Andean range.
The stricken region was hit by more than a score of aftershocks, the largest with a magnitude of 4.8. Shocks were felt as far away as 300 miles from the epicenter, shaking buildings in the coastal cities of Trujillo, Chepen, Pacasmayo, Chiclayo and Piura.
Ferreyros estimated that about 15,000 people across Peru had suffered property losses from the earthquake.
Health Minister Paul Caro said that Peruvian Air Force planes were ferrying food, medicine, tents and clothing to the homeless. Doctors ended a one-month strike at the Health Ministry to aid in the relief effort, authorities said.
Mateo Casaverde, chief of the Geophysical Institute, took Tuesday's temblor as an indication of a renewed period of seismic activity in the region. The quake was similar to one that shook the same zone June 19, 1968, with an intensity of 6.4, he said. Casaverde said that he did not think the Peruvian quake was related to other, almost simultaneous, earthquakes in other parts of the world.
Wednesday's earthquake in southeastern Europe sent Romanians fleeing into the streets in panic. The initial quake, lasting 45 seconds, and a series of aftershocks, sent showers of loosened bricks, cornices and even balconies crashing to the ground.
Hungarian Radio said that hundreds, if not thousands, were injured by falling masonry and roofing tiles shaken from the aging apartment buildings that house most of Bucharest's 2.3 million residents.
Two deaths were reported in the capital, and at least five others in cities and villages north of Bucharest.
Bucharest's streets were jammed with cars shortly after the quake, as office workers rushed home to check on their families in the crumbling, prefabricated apartment blocks that ring the city. Telephone and electrical service was cut off to some areas of Romania.
The Soviet new agency Tass reported an unspecified number of deaths and injuries in the republic of Moldavia, which borders northeastern Romania along the Prut River. Hungarian television also reported Soviet fatalities, but no details were provided.
In Moscow, deputies of the Supreme Soviet legislature observed a minute's silence after being told there had been fatalities in Moldavia. Later news reports, however, said only that six Soviets were injured in the republic that is home to 4.2 million.
One of history's deadliest earthquakes struck Soviet Armenia Dec. 7, 1988, forcing Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to cut short his visit to the United States to return home and oversee disaster relief. More than 25,000 died in the Armenian earthquake, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
Gorbachev was again set to begin a U.S. summit meeting when Wednesday's earthquake struck at 1:40 p.m. local time in Romania and Moldavia.
"Everything is OK. There was no devastation, no destruction," Gorbachev told reporters in Ottawa, saying that he intended to go ahead with his Washington visit later Wednesday.
The earthquake sent strong shock waves thousands of miles across central and eastern Europe to the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey.
U.S. diplomats evacuated the old American Embassy on Chaikovsky Street in Moscow to inspect the building for structural damage.
by CNB