Rescuers in Peru Quake Lose Hope

Residents line up waiting for supplies in front of buildings destroyed by an earthquake in Pisco, Peru, Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007. At least 510 people were killed and 1,500 were injured in the magnitude-8 earthquake that shook the southern coast of Peru last Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan) (Ricardo Mazalan - AP)

But aid was still slow reaching the outlying areas of Pisco.

Teresa Casavilca, 40, walked and hitchhiked in search of food with her 1-year-old son, wrapped in a flowered sheet on her back, from her rural home about six miles outside of Pisco.

"The planes with help go by every moment," Casavilca said. "Where does that help go? Nothing gets to us. My son cries all night from the cold because we're sleeping outside."

Only a trickle of aid was reaching hard-hit mountain communities further inland, said Yerma Canales, director of social services in Castrovirreyna, 140 miles southeast of Lima.

"Help has not gotten to us yet, just a minimal part," Canales said.

She said the region's adobe houses were severely damaged in the quake. Families moved outdoors for their safety, where children are falling ill in the cold weather.

"People are no longer sleeping in their homes," Canales said. "They are going to parks, fields and open ground because aftershocks are happening all the time."

Aid workers estimated during the weekend that up to 80 percent of people in urban quake-hit areas may not have access to clean water.

Local media reported late Sunday that a 12-year-old boy in the village of Guadalupe near Pisco was killed when a wall of his house fell on top of him following a magnitude-5.6 aftershock.

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Associated Press writers Monte Hayes, Leslie Josephs and Edison Lopez in Lima and Frank Bajak in Pisco contributed to this report.