The Peruvian Earthquake: family updates and lender status

[Guest]

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[Ramón]

Just a quick update here. As many on this forum know, Perú got hit last night at about 6:40 PM local time by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake. The epicenter was off the coast of Pisco (in the province of Ica), about 100 miles south of Lima.

As many also know, we have family in Perú and, a substantial part of this family (grandparents, cousins, etc.) live in the city of Ica. Although smaller coastal towns like Pisco and Cañete were definitely worse affected (reports are that 70% of the town of Pisco was destroyed), most casualties were in Ica, simply because that's where the highest population density is.

As for the state of the family, we think that all are OK. Obviously, phone lines (land/mobile) are non-functional right now, and physical transport between Lima and Ica is all but impossible over the road. The condo of one of the cousins (here, just to the left of the arrow) was destroyed-- she lived at the 4th floor with husband and 3 small children. I have no clue if they were home, but at least they were reported to be safe in home of her parents.  However, there is no electricity, streaming water, or telephone right now. Although there is definitely quite a lot of poverty around, this area has a developed middle class, and we communicated regularly with them through "modern" means like IM and Skype.

This is exactly where we spent our vacation last February, right in the zone around the epicenter. We even stayed a weekend on the beach in Paracas, a stone's throw away from Pisco. This is as close as you can get to the epicenter while not going out on the sea. (See here for pictures-- you'll see it looks all quite idyllic.)

Once the "fog of war" clear a little, we'll have to start thinking of relief efforts. The last time a natural disaster struck Ica was in 1996, when the city flooded due to El Niño. It took them 10 years to repair the basic infrastructure then. Hopefully they will be able to do something a bit faster now, since the Peruvian economy has grown quite a lot since that time.

I'll update the thread if I have any more pertinent information.

--Ramón

[Kay]

Thank you for the update, Ramón.  I'm sure we'll all be hoping for best. 

[Diane R]

I was thinking of your family, Ramon, (and our entrepreneurs in Peru) when I read the news yesterday. Thank you for the update, our thoughts are with your family and others...

--Diane.

[fredr1c]

Ramón,

I'm glad to hear that your family is safe and sound. 

A disaster like this can be all too abstract unless you have family or friends in the affected area, or know of someone who does.

I hope and pray that things will improve quickly for your loved ones and for everyone else affected by the quake.

Fred

[Jill]

   Hey, Ramón,
        I posted you earlier about this, in Reply #325, http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,458.320.html ,
and just came back to discover your thread.
       This is like the Mark Agwonah "phenomenon,"
maybe even a little more intensified since we have all gotten to know you and care about you.

      I guess it's the Kiva phenomenon, too.
    All this stuff just feels So Much Closer To Home, now, when it happens.
    And we feel it so much more, now. 
     It's happening to one of us.

    Am very Very much hoping you will soon get confirmation
that all of your people there are safe.
          Cuidaté     (Take care),
          Jill

     

 

[Womble]

I keep reading the news about the earthquake in Peru and wondering if any projects are currently in that area.  I am fairly new and don't have that many borrowers yet so none in Peru, but I see that we have MFIs from Peru, so I assume there must be some borrowers there.  I hope that the MFIs will post news in Journals or somewhere to let people know if their borrowers are OK.   

Womble

[Robert]

There are 31 loans with Microfinanzas Prisma (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&queryString=Microfinanzas+PRISMA&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old) and 18 with Finca Perú (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&queryString=FINCA+Peru&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old).

[AccountAbility]

We need to somehow merge these two earthquake threads.   

[Diane R]

Diane the Moderator is happy to oblige: threads merged.

[Ramón]

The area where Kiva MFIs are active t
And that is closest to the affected part of Perú is Ayacucho. I have also family in Puno (twin city with Juliaca), she tells me that Puno is not affected. I would expect existing Kiva entrepreneurs not to be directly affected; however note that the road from Ayacucho to Lima passes through Chincha, a coastal town that has been all but destroyed. The Panamericana Sur highway, between Lima and Chincha has also been destroyed at several places, so I'd expect transport to and from Ayacucho to be very difficult.

BTW, if you ever see any grapes or asparagus in your grocery stores that are labeled Product of Perú, they are from Ica, probably from around Pisco. If you are fashion-conscious and wear La Coste polo shirts, they are made in Cañete, Perú. Not that I feel even close to sorry for La Coste's sweat shops in Perú, but I guess they got themselves a logistics issue. Cañete is destroyed.
Small bright spot this afternoon: some of the phones in Ica are up again and we were able to contact family there. All are fine, but many of their friends and acquaintances are not. Several neighbors have family members that perished.

Bringing this post back to the topic of aid, I think that one of the challenges is, after the first relief needs are fulfilled, how to rebuild the area. Schools, roads, hospitals, water/electric/sewage infrastructure, homes and businesses. Micro-financing may help, ibut I guess this is going to take 100s of millions USD.

--Ramón