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Second year of Peru's earthquake reconstruction to advance more quickly

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

After earthquake victims receive property deeds and rubble is removed from the regions devastated by last year's earthquake, the reconstruction process will flow much more smoothly, said the country's housing minister Enrique Cornejo.

Cornejo affirmed the second year of reconstruction would advance much more quickly than the first year had.

"Reality is that no reconstruction process in any part of the world can be done in one year. There are things that can be corrected but this second year things will advance much more quickly," said Cornejo.

"We have a good deal of the work done, like the removal of debris which is not easy."

He explained that one year after reconstruction of the areas affected by the magnitude-8 earthquake on August 15 had begun, work on sewage pipes would start.

The housing minister added the government was satisfied with the distribution of property deeds, stating it had put forth a great deal of effort in providing them for citizens.

He reported that to this date, 18,769 deeds had been distributed to earthquake victims.

The government is also doing its best to give thousands of families bonds that will allow them to start building their homes, Cornejo said, explaining the people of Ica, Pisco and Chincha now had to actively take part in the reconstruction of their homes and establishments.

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# Peter says :
18 August, 2008 [ 16:18 ]

Interesting report Israel...after many comments from various people in other sections of Peru News on this "slow" matter, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. :)
Viracocha

# mericorps says :
18 August, 2008 [ 18:31 ]

Cornejo is a liar, the money has been wasted, the efforts were not serious and much more could have been done before now. If they used the donations they revieved from other countries without fraud, they would have been about 60% further along than they are. It is not a matter of equipment, ability, infrastructure, simply greed and corruption have made the victims of the disaster victims of a failed government effort. I do not think Peru is a terrible country, but this is one area where they have failed, and failed miserably.

# David N says :
18 August, 2008 [ 19:51 ]

Bottom line is there is Lima, which gets most of the government's time, money, and effort, and then there is the rest of Peru, where if you have a problem good luck.

One would think that work on sewage pipes would take priority over handing out pieces of paper, but that would actually require cold hard cash which the Peruvian government would rather spend rebuilding old airplanes and taking actresses to court for sitting on the flag.

# CapitanDan says :
18 August, 2008 [ 21:25 ]

Ah Mericorps and David, I see they can't fool all of the people.I believe we are seeing the old shell game.My Friends that Lived in Chin Cha appreciate your wise and caring thoughts. Chau Friends

# been there says :
19 August, 2008 [ 13:31 ]

I was in Chincha a few weeks ago. There has been ZERO effort from the Peruvian government to reconstruct or hand out the promised checks (s/4000) so people can rebuild on their own. The ONLY reconstruction work that has been done in Chincha, Pîcso and Ica has been done by the fantastic group Un Techo Para Mi Pais. The weekend I was there, we put together 30 prefabricated houses. It´s a poor alternative to a real house, but one year has passed and these people have NOTHING. The Peruvian government has failed on all measures.

# Splaktar says :
20 August, 2008 [ 00:09 ]

Wow, that many people built houses and didn't even have property deeds to the property? Or did they all loose them in their homes during the earthquake?

It must be near impossible for the gov't to make sure the correct people get checks and support when so many of them do not have property deeds at all.  I bet a lot of people from other areas went there and just claimed lots so that they could get free checks and land.

It sounds like this slow progress was made even slower by the poor gov't decisions before the earthquake.  How can you have many thousands of people (hundreds of thousands?) living in your city on land that they don't even legally own.  This of course leads to their houses not being insurable either.

I guess it is surprising that any progress has been made at all in such a politically corrupt and inept country.

# Peter says :
20 August, 2008 [ 04:18 ]

Allillanchu Splaktar...therein lies Enrique's comments about the land/house deeds...anyway, the whole thing seems to be in slow motion, for many reasons that many comments have already mentioned.
It must be bloody hard to control/investigate governments that have don't have a  "watch-dog" higher than a president.
I guess that all the politicians MUST remember that poor people vote too !!...and there is a bloody lot of them ,as all will agree.

As some other comment said, "Ica & Pisco etc. are a long way from Lima"....si,... "out of sight - out of mind" as the old saying goes...but,but,but...as per my earlier comments on other pages of this news...the journos must try to keep the problem(s) in front of the Governments' eyes....and the world's eyes tambien.

Persistance is the name of the game!!

Chau,
Viracocha & Mamacocha

# peruana says :
13 September, 2008 [ 17:08 ]

Peru government & Bureucrats try to hide the truth of what is really happening that they  don't want to acknowledge,because they have no idea,of the humanitarian crusual need that need attention to those issue of importance surrounding peoples survival, YES people survival,children,newborn,parent,families,elders,old people, ...yes old people-- you are going to be one\one day & i hope you get treated the way you treat others

Wait till Apec start: then i  and the rest of the world will be asking peru some serious question, on how secure this nation is on Human decency and Humanitarian Issue,as to why we should  in future contemplate a free trade agreement,where by there may be other country that need more serious attention to need,based around  meeting Humanitarian Poverty Issue