PERU: Pope Benedict's top aide, Cardinal Bertone, holds mass, talks with victims and tours damage in devastated Ica

Pope Benedict's top aide, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, sought to comfort thousands of quake victims in the town of Ica on Friday (August 24), a city south of Lima devastated by last week's tragic earthquake. The epicentre of the magnitude-8.0 quake hit close to the cities of Ica and nearby Pisco, bringing down thousands of mostly adobe structures and killing more than 500 people. Bertone held mass and talked with some of the thousands who are camping in tents after their homes were destroyed. Government officials estimate some 34,000 homes crumbled, leaving tens of thousands out in the cold. After his visit to Ica, Bertone was headed to Pisco where about 100 members of the town's congregation died when the local San Clemente church came down during a service. At a visit with Peru's President Alan Garcia in Lima earlier in the day, Bertone expressed the church's solidarity with the victims. On an official visit, Bertone had already planned to visit the predominantly-Catholic country for the IX Eucharistic Congress in the northern Peruvian city of Chimbote that begins on Saturday, but the earthquake changed the focus of his trip.

ITN Source | August 25, 2007

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