Earthquake in southern Peru affected 85,000 people

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Basic water supplies and power services returned to parts of Peru's quake-ravaged central coast on Tuesday, as President Alan Garcia promised jobs and financial aid to survivors.

Upon his arrival in the fishing port of Pisco, Garcia announced the launching of "Construyendo Peru" (building Peru) a project through which he said he "will hire four thousand people here in Pisco, two thousand in Ica and two thousand in Chincha to work first on cleaning the city and later to support the urban rebuilding."

Dozens of people attended the ceremony for the launching of the rebuilding project, which took place in Pisco's main square. Garcia added that in Pisco, where last week's deadly magnitude-8 quake killed at least 540 people and destroyed 85 percent of homes, half the city's electric-powered wells were now operational, along with all the wells in nearby Ica and Chincha. He also said electricity had been restored to 90 percent of Ica and 60 percent of Chincha.

Through the government programme, workers will receive about 130 US dollars a month, paid in advance, the Labour Ministry said in a statement.

Garcia has said the streets of Pisco would be cleared within two weeks. In the meantime rescue workers continued searching for bodies still trapped in the rubble which covers the majority of Pisco.

One worker, told AP Television, that the structural damage was not so important. "What we mourn is the loss of life, because material things, with work, can be built again," he said.

Meanwhile Garcia also said that nearly two thousand tons of humanitarian aid had reached the city, and that helicopters would be used to speed up the delivery of supplies to rural areas where aid has been slow to reach.

Thousands of people were still sleeping outside in makeshift tents, huddling against the cold ocean winds known as "Paracas" - which are usually strongest in August, the end of the austral winter.