Peru earthquake kills 450, bodies in streets

By Jean Luis Arce

PISCO, Peru (Reuters) - Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday and bodies piled up on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country's central coast.

Firefighters, civil defense officials and the United Nations said around 450 were killed in the 8.0-magnitude quake on Wednesday night. Some 2,000 people were injured and the death toll was expected to rise further.

As rescuers scrambled through the debris in search of survivors, dazed residents guarded bodies in the street, unsure where to take them. Many of the victims were poor and were trapped after their traditional adobe-brick homes collapsed.

In the hard-hit town of Pisco, south of the capital Lima, at least 50 bodies were laid out in the main square, where a church fell in on itself during a service.

"They had gone to the church for a mass to commemorate a dead loved one," said Enrique Gonzales, 48, sobbing as he searched for his wife and three sisters-in-law. "They never came back."

The U.S. Geological Survey upgraded the quake's magnitude to 8.0 from an earlier 7.9 measurement, and powerful aftershocks rattled the country on Thursday.

Hospitals were overwhelmed with the injured and morgues with the dead, forcing Peruvians to place dead bodies pulled from crumbled mud-brick houses on city streets.

In the town of Chincha, wounded people lay on the floor in San Jose hospital, where walls were destroyed by the quake.