Aid flow widens to desperate Peruvians

PISCO (AFP) - Aid to communities hit by the powerful earthquake in Peru, initially just a trickle, was finally turning into a substantial flow Saturday with authorities inside the country and foreign organizations pitching in.

Ration handouts, medical teams and rescue crews were all being reinforced hourly to the relief of people in southern towns such as Pisco which bore the brunt of last Wednesday's seismic catastrophe.

Private donations of food and relief supplies were coming in from all over Peru. Some 900 inmates at a Callao prison donated two days' worth of their food rations to the earthquake victims, said Justice Minister Maria Zavala.

"Acts such as these are what ennoble mankind," she added.