The Peruvian Earquake

THE PERUVIAN EARQUARE – PISCO - ICA 2007

On August 15, 2007, there was one of the worst earthquakes in the history of Peru and Latin America. It was measured 8.0 in the moment magnitude scale, lasted almost three minutes and affected all the Region of Ica. The Cathedral and three hospitals in Ica collapsed, killing more than 300 people. Figure 2. Map of the affected area. BBC (2007)

According to the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (2007), more than 519 people were killed, 1,090 people were injured and at least 58,000 houses collapsed; due that 80% of those houses were made of “adove”, a mud brick made by sand, clay water and sticks.

Despite the large number of facts, which are not the idea of this paper, consider the large number

The institute for National Defense (INDECI) gave 5.8 million dollars the regional government of Ica (that includes the cities Pisco and Ica), and 78% of that money were used to hire machinery, but, due the speed and urgency of the emergency situation there were no bid contract and according to Inter Press Service (2007), those contracts were made with companies linked to regional authorities. Some workers informed that those companies where chosen for personal preferences.

Those are just some of the corruption acts proven by the Peruvian government, Olken, B. and Pande, R. (2012) says that in the developing countries, the acts of corruption caught are just a little part of the real corruption that exist in that kind of countries. Gade, S. (2012) says that the more percentage of corruption in a region, the less punishment in the same

(2008) says that the Peruvian government and non-governmental organizations did not responsive enough and that after a year they started to audit what happened, to which high levels of corruption was found, and they only received about 50% of aid.

In 2011, to avoid that situation, the Peruvian government created the National Council on Risk Management (CONAGERD), an authority for policy making and strategic coordination of disaster relief operations, and also created the National Centre for Estimation, Prevention and Reduction of Disaster Risk (CENEPRED). The National Congress established a law SINAGERD that provides a comprehensive framework that clarifies the role of different actors involved in disaster risk management and disaster relief, and ensures their coordination.

However, all these measures taken during and after the support measures were not sufficient to mitigate corruption in the country. In Peru there is a culture of corruption for hundreds of years due to impunity, this corruption reaches levels of national and international audit. Therefore, although the audits are important to reduce levels of corruption after natural disasters in the country, are not a definitive answer to the problem