Peru earthquake: death toll rises

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in Peru is now believed to be around 450 with some 2,000 injured.

The quake, which measured 8.0 - upgraded from a previous estimate of 7.9 - on the Richter scale, knocked down thousands of buildings south of the capital, Lima.

Several strong aftershocks followed as Peruvians pulled the dead from the rubble of homes and churches, piling some of them on street corners.

As rescuers scrambled through the debris in search of survivors, dazed residents guarded bodies in the street, not sure where to take them.

"We don't know what to do. I don't know where to hold a wake for her," Jose Flores, a boy about 12-years-old, said as he stood near the body of his dead mother outside their destroyed adobe home in the city of Chincha, 125 miles south of Lima.

"The wall just came down and crushed her when I was outside," he said.

In the nearby city of Pisco, 48 bodies were laid out in the main square.

Authorities said the quake generated a tsunami of undetermined size but later cancelled a warning issued for coasts from Chile to Mexico.

One Lima resident said she felt the earthquake while she was seated inside a taxi.

"The car was vibrating, and you could see all the buildings here in San Isidro and the glass vibrating. People were running, all the passers-by were grabbing their mobile phones. They wanted to call home but they could not. No one could get through on my phone line either," she said.

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