PISCO, Peru (AFP) - President Alan Garcia Saturday threatened a curfew to stop looting in earthquake-stricken areas of southern Peru, where health authorities are battling the spread of infectious diseases.
"I have ordered (police) to use the harshest measures and if needed to impose a curfew," Garcia told reporters in Pisco, the town hit hardest by Wednesday's quake, where he has been monitoring rescue efforts since Friday.
Amid increasing reports of looting and assaults, Garcia ordered more troops to the quake-stricken area and promised that authorities would keep the peace "whatever the cost."
Garcia tried to play down reports of looting in Pisco and Chincha, saying they were nothing more than "rumors," but a RPP radio reporter in Chincha broke down in tears describing the prevailing lawlessness in the city which he said the earthquake devastated and left at the mercy of marauding gangs of armed thugs.
A government statement out of Lima, meanwhile, said 1,000 military have been sent to assist 2,000 police in patrolling streets in Pisco, Chincha, Ica and Canete, with orders to "deal firmly" with looting and plundering.
Also in this coastal city 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast of Lima, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said that some 1,500 physicians and nurses were struggling to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases among earthquake victims.
On the third day after the massive 8.0 magnitude earthquake quake struck Wednesday, the official toll remained at 500 and more than 1,600 injured.
But the number of missing is still unknown, and lacking official figures, news media estimate the number of people affected by the quake at 200,000.
A ray of hope fell on Pisco Saturday with the birth of a baby in a field hospital set up in the city's main square. Garcia took the baby in his arms calling it "a breath of life ... a miracle amid crumbling walls and the pain."
Around two-thirds of Pisco was destroyed, leaving many of its 130,000 inhabitants homeless and an unknown number of dead still beneath the rubble of collapsed homes, shops and other buildings.
Desperate survivors tried to raid a Pisco food store. The mob was chased off when the owners fired their weapons into the air.
Mobs looted trucks carrying food and water, and some people tried to break into the air force base where relief efforts have been centralized.
Hours later close to the provincial capital of Ica, another mob tried to raid a convoy of trucks carrying emergency supplies.