Quake spurs calls to Peru from suburbs

Minutes after a magnitude-8 earthquake rocked three Peruvian cities Wednesday night, Monica Crespo got a call from her father-in-law.

He told her that both her and her husband's families in Lima were all right. Then he passed the phone to Crespo's mother.

As they talked, the phone went dead.

By Thursday evening, Crespo, 32, and her husband, Ricardo De Lo Slor, 34, still couldn't reach their families by phone. But news updates reassured them, and a late-afternoon e-mail confirmed that nobody among their closest relatives was injured.

"Being away from family is one of the biggest concerns we have," Crespo said.

She and her husband have taught at the Naperville branch of Language Stars, a foreign language school, for three years. They will return home to Peru Oct. 2.

Tuning into coverage of the earthquake made them feel better.

"It's not every day you find out about Peru on the local news," Crespo said.

Jimena Hassler 38, of Naperville, who grew up in Arequipa, Peru, said, "It was hard to watch the news," as the death toll rose from 17 to 300 to 500 over the course of a day.

Hassler knows family members in Arequipa and Lima are unhurt. But she's still waiting for a e-mail from her friend in Chincha.

"I hope she's fine," she said. She wants to help but doesn't know how, and thinks her friend can give her some direction.

For Marco Ortiz, 45, of Lake in the Hills, this week's disaster brought back terrible memories of the earthquake that killed 70,000 Peruvians in 1970. Then 8 years old, he lived in downtown Trujillo, a city in northern Peru.

"All these buildings were moving like this," he said, his hands springing apart and back together again. "All these cars were jumping like this," his hand swinging up and down.

"I was in shock," he said. "We thought it was the end of the world."

Ortiz is a permanent U.S. resident who has been waiting for citizenship so his wife, Perla, 47, can join him and their three children -- Susana, 21, Miguel, 19, and Denisse, 16 -- here. He was driving home when his wife called about 8 p.m. Wednesday, and told him there was a tsunami warning in their home of Huanchaco, a beach town 15 miles from Trujillo.

"She was so scared," he said.

Perla and Denisse, who is visiting her mother for the summer, grabbed a taxi to her brother's house in Trujillo. She called Thursday to say both she and Denisse, a junior at Jacobs High School in Algonquin, were safe.

Peruvian community organizers in Chicago and the local consulate will meet today to discuss fundraising and what else they can do to help, said Peruvian Arts Society officers Jim and Velma Salvatore.

Coprodeli, a nonprofit based in Chicago that serves Peru's impoverished communities, said on its Web site that it is organizing relief aid and services for earthquake victims. It is accepting donations by check.

Oana Chirita, of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago, said currently only the Peruvian Red Cross is responding. Those wishing to donate can log on to chicagoredcross.org or call (312) 729-6100.

The region's Peruvian population numbers about 15,000, most of them concentrated on Chicago's Northwest Side and in the suburbs of Palatine and West Chicago, the Salvatores said.

The Salvatores traveled through the area struck by Wednesday's earthquake a few years ago and greatly enjoyed their time there.

"Two minutes and it's all gone," said Velma. "It's unbelievable."

The losses are great, but "Peru is a very strong country," Crespo said. "It will take a while but we'll get over it."