Alan Garcia: Despite Earthquake, Peru's Economy Can Grow by 8 Percent his Year

[Judi Lynn]

Source: LIP-ir

27 August, 2007 < 08:30 >

Alan Garcia: Despite Earthquake, Peru's Economy Can Grow by 8 Percent his Year


(LIP-ir) -- Peru's President Alan Garcia, has stated that Peru's economy can grow by up to 8 percent this year, if companies move up when they plan on investing.

Alan Garcia told Andina News Agency, "Let's invest now, and by the end of the year we will see the fruits of the effort all Peruvians have made, and maybe an 8 percent growth will be surpassed. At great speeds we will continue to get closer to development and ending unemployment."

Garcia affirmed that that the impact the magnitude-8 earthquake on August 15, which completely destroyed parts of the south, would only have short-term effects on Peru's economy.

"If we speed up investments, instead of investing at the beginning of next year, and invest in September, October and November, rest assured that what the earthquake set us back, we can regain by growing more with our will and investment," stated Peru's President.


Read more: http://www.livinginperu.com/news-4585-economy-alan-garcia-despite-earthquake-perus-economy-can-grow-8-percent-his-year

[Judi Lynn]

1. Meanwhile, in the REAL world,"In Peru, a baby's muffled cry leads to eventual rescue - and outrage"

In Peru, a baby's muffled cry leads to eventual rescue - and outrage
By Alexei Barrionuevo

Sunday, August 26, 2007
PISCO, Peru: Through the choking smoke and with little light to guide him, Luis Palomino dug furiously through the rubble of the San Clemente church two hours after the Aug. 15 earthquake that buried parishioners under a pile of adobe stones. Then, somewhere in the distance, he heard a baby crying.

Disoriented, Palomino, 30, said he could not locate the noise until five hours later, about 1 a.m., when he and his cousin Abel finally pulled 7-month-old Gerson Williams Alviar from beneath the body of his father, William.

While Gerson survived, both of his parents and all three of his sisters died in the church that night. So did as many as 60 members of one extended family, the Espinos, to whom the baby is related.

Ten days after the quake, the baby's grandparents and his rescuers were insisting that if the government had mobilized its rescue efforts sooner, Gerson would not be an orphan. Nor, they said, would so many people - about 540 in all, at least 432 of them in Pisco - have died from lack of air or injuries suffered in the 8.0-magnitude quake that shook southern Peru on Aug. 15.

As it was, the families here say they were left to sift the ruins for the dead and the living themselves, amid faint cries and the sounds of cellphone buttons being pressed. "People were alive in there, but no help came," said Kiara Alviar, 16, one of Gerson's aunts. "It didn't have to end this way."

Professional rescue teams and heavy equipment to move debris did not arrive until the next morning, more than 12 hours after the quake had demolished the city of 90,000. Many of the victims choked to death on the thick dust cloud from the crumbled adobe stones, officials said.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/26/news/quake.php

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Well, I still going to Peru in October. We just won't get to stay in the area the earthquake hit.