Associated Press Posted online: Friday, August 17, 2007 at 0759 hours IST Updated: Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1051 hours IST
Pisco (Peru), August 17: The death toll rose to 510 in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. Survivors wearing blankets walked like ghosts through the ruins.
Dust-covered dead were pulled out and laid in rows in the streets, or beneath bloodstained sheets at damaged hospitals and morgues on Thursday. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send the structures crashing down.
Destruction was centered in Peru's southern desert, at the oasis city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles (200 kilometres) southeast of the capital, Lima.
The deputy chief of Peru's fire department, Roberto Ognio, presented a report saying the death toll from the quake had risen to 510. He did not say where the additional 60 deaths had occurred.
Earlier on Thursday, the United Nations said the official toll of 450 dead was expected to rise.
"It is quite likely that the numbers will continue to go up since the destruction of the houses in this area is quite total," said UN Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom.
The San Clemente church in the main plaza of the gritty fishing port of Pisco was perhaps the single deadliest spot in Wednesday's magnitude-8 earthquake, which devastated cities and hamlets of adobe and brick across Peru's southern desert.
Hundreds had gathered in the pews of the San Clemente church Wednesday - the day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven - for a special Mass marking one month since the death of a Pisco man.
Pisco (Peru), August 17: The death toll rose to 510 in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. Survivors wearing blankets walked like ghosts through the ruins.
