Six Firemen from Pompiers sans Frontieres Peru
One specialist from SamusocialPeru

Four days: From Thursday, 17th to Sunday, 20th august.

The team spent time transporting wounded people to the hospital and helping out with first emergency aid. Then they spent most part of the night cruising the streets and explaining to groups of people how to get organized as the situation is pretty chaotic: people were in the streets, there was no light, almost no drinking water, dead bodies were piled up on the "plaza central" or near the hospital, looters were looming and the local authorities were almost absent. They explained to people the basic hygiene rules to help reduce the risks of disease and the spread of infections, and they brought comfort to a lot of people who were happy to see that some help was on its way.

The next morning, (Friday 18th) the team left Chincha Alta to go to Pisco. They arrived there at 9AM. They immediately contacted the local authorities; the "Defensa Civil". But they realized that they were overwhelmed by the situation. As a result, every aid group that arrived had to organize their help alone and without coordination. As a result, the aid is very slow. So our team worked with the Peruvian firemen, who are the biggest group of aid so far (around 500 of them), to organize the aid by cutting the city in "sectors" and by sending all the aid groups in specific "sectors". When a new team arrives, it is sent to a sector that needs it.

Three more firemen from PSF left Lima in the afternoon in a military airplane and were able to join our team at the end of the day. They brought with them special equipment to help detect people still alive under the debris. This search work for survivors was done in coordination with the local Peruvian firemen.

The team also spend some time at the Pisco military airport helping organizing the evacuation of wounded people to Lima.

In Lima, the SamusocialPeru staff bought 1000 (one thousand) specially designed meals and organized the transport to Pisco for the next day with the Peruvian firemen in a special convoy to try to avoid the looting. The meals consisted of non perishable food. every meal included tuna (in can), chocolate bars, biscuits as well as water and fruit juice (one liter each).

On Friday evening our team worked from 8PM to almost 1AM on Saturday at the Embassy Hotel site in Pisco. They joined a team of Spanish firemen. Unfortunately they could not find anybody alive. Only dead bodies.

On Saturday the team continued to work on this site with other teams from Peru and other countries. At 2PM, 15 dead bodies were recovered.

Our team then went to the hospital where they started bringing first emergency help to wounded, evacuation of wounded to airport, etc...

In Lima, the 1000 special meals were given to the Peruvian firemen at 5PM and a special convoy left for Pisco. One volunteer from PSF was with them to help check on the food. The convoy reached its destination and the food was distributed in the evening.

On Sunday, our team continued bringing support to the local hospital, but it also received 4 French firemen who arrived in the afternoon. They were sent to a little village near Pisco called Bernales (3000 inhabitants, 95% destroyed) where they were going to stay 2 days before going to another village. People in Bernales were very happy to see those firemen as they were the first aid they had seen since the earthquake...
In the evening 7 more French firemen arrived and the same thing was done: sending them to villages in the vicinity of Pisco, which was very good because at this stage, all the aid was concentrating on Pisco, leaving those villages alone.

In the evening, the mission was over, everybody was exhausted and they went back to Lima.