Société
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More than 100,000 schools in Peru took part Thursday in a nationwide drill to prepare for a possible earthquake of magnitude 8 or higher and subsequent tsunami, an Education Ministry official said.
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The drill began at 10 am local time (15:00 GMT), and more than 8 million students from all educational levels throughout the country took part, Aurora Zegarra, director of the ministry's Community and Environmental Education department, said at a press conference.
In addition to the students, the drill saw the participation of their teachers and school administrative workers, and police rescue teams, Zegarra said.
The official said the measure was part of emergency life- preservation policies in case of such natural disasters.
Earthquakes are common in Peru, a coastal country that lies atop the Nazca and South American plates. A strong-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami could happen here at any time.
The last big earthquake hit on May 31, 1970, when a devastating magnitude-7.8 quake left 70,000 people dead, thousands missing and hundreds of thousands homeless.
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