<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">LIMA, Peru - A powerful earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, toppling some buildings and killing at least 15 people. Authorities said the quake generated a tsunami but it wasn't destructive. Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said there were 15 confirmed deaths in southern Peru, but Civil Defense put the death toll at 22 without providing details. Peru's highly respected Cable news station Canal N reported that the 7.9 magnitude quake had caused a church to collapse in the city of Ica south of Lima, killing 17 people and injuring 70. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at a depth of about 25 miles. Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterwards. Several hours later, President Alan Garcia said in a nationwide broadcast that it apparently had not caused a catastrophe. "Thank you God Almighty, these terrible quakes did not cause a high death toll like in other years," he said. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coasts of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama. A tsunami watch was issued for the rest of Central America and Mexico and an advisory for Hawaii. The center canceled all the alerts after about two hours, but it said the quake had caused an estimated 10-inch tsunami near the epicenter. "It wasn't big enough to be destructive," said Stuart Weinstein, the center's assistant director. An Associated Press photographer said that some homes had collapsed in the center of Lima and that many people had fled into the streets for safety. The capital shook for more than a minute. "There was a pretty big, intense, long-wave earthquake," a woman named Erica in Lima told APTN television. "You could see all the buildings here in San Isidro and the glass shaking." "People were running, everyone was grabbing their cell phones," she added. "They wanted to call home and they couldn't. No one could get through to my line either. In his comments, Garcia did not give a death toll, but said there were at least 70 confirmed injured.</div> <div align="center">Source: Yahoo! News</div> This is just horrible, though of course not surprising given the area and thankfully not as deadly as past quakes. The aftershocks were quite powerful.
I just found out that my cousin was in that area a day before the earthquake. Thank god she's alright.
