Two years have passed since a magnitude-8 earthquake flattened this Peruvian city. Today, much of Pisco remains in ruins. Women recover from childbirth in tents outside the heavily damaged hospital. The local government is run out of a cluster of wooden prefabricated homes. And until the mayor ordered them to move two months ago, hundreds of people lived in tent communities on the city's soccer fields.
Aug. 15 marked the second anniversary of a quake from which this small working-class port city, four hours south of Lima, is still recovering. Three terrifying minutes left more than 500 people dead across the region, more than a thousand injured, and 80 percent of Pisco's buildings uninhabitable.
Two years later, residents are disillusioned with the pace of reconstruction. Many use the word "forgotten."
"The government hasn't remembered us at all," says Aurora Garcia, who lived on a soccer field for nearly two years. Tears welled up: What was taking so long?
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