A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the southern coast of Peru early Friday morning, said the National Emergency Operations Center (COEN) of the Andean country, and according to the first official reports there are no fatalities, but there are some minor injuries.
The strong earthquake had its epicenter off the coast of the town of Yauca, in the Arequipa region—the second most populated in the country— about 580 kilometers south of Lima, with a depth of 42 kilometers, reported the COEN.
“We are making the first evaluations and thank God at this time we have no fatalities recorded,” said the Prime Minister of Peru, Gustavo Adrianzén, to local radio RPP, although he added that there is “damage to some properties.”
The United States National Tsunami Warning Center and the Peruvian Navy declared that the movement represented a tsunami warning, based on the first data available after the earthquake occurred.
Adrianzén later said that The Navy’s tsunami warning was dismissed, “although there could be some abnormal waves.”
The head of the disaster risk management directorate of the Ministry of Health, David Aponte, said for his part that three minor injuries had been reported.
Following the earthquake, at least four aftershocks with magnitudes between 4.0 and 4.6 were recorded in the Arequipa region, according to the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP).
Carlos Zanabria, an adviser to the regional government of Arequipa, said residents had abandoned their homes in fear and that some material damage was reported in some districts.
The mayor of the Yauca district, Flavio Aranguren, stated that in his community “some walls have fallen from some homes, although so far there have been no deaths.”
Small artisanal gold mines operate in the town of Yauca and other neighboring towns near the coast, but there was no information available until now about any impact.
Ricardo Guillén, representative of COEN, stated that Power and telephone line outages have been reported in areas close to the epicentre of the earthquake.
