A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Peru’s southern Andes, injuring at least two people and damaging homes, health facilities and a school, authorities said. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded the earthquake at 1 p.m. local time, or 18:00 GMT, on Thursday.
The epicenter was 38 kilometers, or 24 miles, northwest of Upahuacho in Parinacochas province, part of the Ayacucho region. The USGS measured the depth at 66 kilometers, or 41 miles. The shaking was felt across a wide portion of southern Peru, including Ica, Arequipa, Huancavelica, Apurimac and Cusco, and reached the capital, Lima.
Luis Vásquez, the head of Civil Defense, said two people were hurt while leaving their homes in Coracora, the provincial capital of Parinacochas. The supplied report did not describe the severity of their injuries. No deaths were reported.
Authorities documented damage to 22 homes, six health centers and one school. Reports came from several districts in Ayacucho and Cusco, including Puquio, Pullo, Coracora, Upahuacho, San Pedro and Pichari. Rockfalls were also observed on hillsides near Coracora, creating an additional hazard as officials assessed affected areas.
Peru’s navy concluded that the earthquake did not create a tsunami threat. Although the center of the quake was inland in the Andes, the assessment gave coastal communities and emergency authorities a formal indication that no tsunami response was required.
Initial reports immediately after an earthquake are often revised as field teams reach remote communities and inspect structures. In this case, the first account cited by the Associated Press said there were no immediate damage reports; the later update included the injuries and building impacts reported by civil-defense authorities. That progression reflected newly gathered information rather than conflicting final assessments.
Peru experiences frequent earthquakes because it lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a broad zone of recurring seismic activity around the ocean. The country has a history of destructive events. A magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Ica in 2007 killed nearly 600 people, providing context for the attention given to even moderate early damage reports.
The August 20 earthquake was smaller than that 2007 disaster and considerably deeper below the surface. Still, its wide felt area, injuries during evacuation, structural damage and rockfalls showed how a single event could affect communities across multiple regions.
The immediate official priorities were checking damaged homes and public services, monitoring hillside hazards and establishing whether additional communities needed assistance. The evidence supplied did not include a final loss estimate or any indication of major interruption to transport, utilities or health care, so those outcomes remained undetermined in the early assessment.
