The last time Peru’s capital of Lima experienced a major earthquake was 1746. The quake and its resulting tsunami killed an estimated one-tenth of the city’s 50,000 residents. Now home to around 10 million people, Lima is overdue for another one—with a magnitude of up to 8.8, said Carlos Zavala, the director of the Peruvian-Japanese Center for Seismic Research and Disaster Mitigation (CISMID). That would put it in the top 10 most powerful earthquakes ever recorded.
Yet the city is woefully ill-prepared. Despite Lima’s location on the Pacific rim, the most seismically unstable region on Earth, Peruvian policymakers are not readying the city for a calamity that scientists have for years warned is inevitable. When the proverbial “big one” does strike, Peru could become the poster child for how the lack of effective government can multiply the devastating effects of natural disasters.
Experts estimate that 80 percent of homes in Lima have been built without input from architects, engineers, or regulators. The consequences of the city’s informal housing are potentially fatal. One 2009 study by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Disasters, a Peruvian nonprofit, predicted that a big earthquake will leave up to 51,000 dead, 686,000 injured, and 200,000 homes collapsed. A 2017 study by Peru’s National Institute of Civil Defense predicted as many as 110,000 fatalities—which would make it nearly twice as deadly as the apocalyptic 7.8-magnitude quake that hit Turkey and Syria in February.
Quakes, including deadly ones, are a relatively frequent occurrence in the country. A 2007 quake that occurred four hours south of Lima killed 595 people. One in 1970 unleashed landslides in the Andean region of Ancash that entombed entire villages, killing 70,000 people. The shaking often reaches the capital but would pale in comparison to a major seismic event with an epicenter in or adjacent to the Lima region.
The Peruvian Congress, which had a 90 percent disapproval rating as of last month, has completely ignored the problem. Riddled with corruption and inefficiency, it appears unaware of the critical need to improve disaster preparedness. Lawmakers have been too busy dismantling democratic institutions while shielding members from graft investigations. Among other moves, they are trying to capture the judiciary with an unconstitutional attempt to sack the National Board of Justice, which hires and fires judges, and pull Peru out of the Inter-American Human Rights system—a decision that would put the nation on a par with Venezuela and Nicaragua, whose dictatorships no longer recognize its jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, many analysts consider Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, whose disapproval rating is 84 percent, a hostage to lawmakers. A political neophyte, the leftist Boluarte stepped up from the vice presidency after Pedro Castillo was impeached and arrested for his botched attempt to shutter the conservative-dominated Congress and rule by decree in December. Boluarte appears to have no agenda beyond clinging to her job until the 2026 elections—and the presidential immunity she enjoys while in office against being prosecuted for security forces’ killing of anti-government protesters.
As Peru’s political crisis shows no sign of abating, the earthquake grows nearer. “It’s a feeling of impotence. I have dedicated most of my life to solving this problem. But as a society, we’re not doing what needs to be done,” said Marcial Blondet, an engineering professor who specializes in seismic construction at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “It will be a catastrophe. People are going to die unnecessarily.”
From Greece’s wildfires in August to Libya’s devastating flooding in September, governance failures are often blamed for turbocharging the deadly impact of natural disasters. In Greece, environmentalists have criticized government policies for failing to address the increased fire risk triggered by climate change. In Libya, two dams near the city of Derna burst after heavy rains and, more importantly, years of neglect—first under the late Muammar Gaddafi, and then under the various rival factions, including Islamist groups, that have controlled the city in recent years.
Yet none of these catastrophes have been as clearly forecast as the one that threatens the Peruvian capital. Experts say Peru’s elected officials at all levels should prioritize three policy areas to avoid this possibility. The first and most obvious is to enforce Peru’s routinely flouted seismic construction code for new buildings.
The government should also quickly implement cheaper fixes to make existing structures less dangerous, Blondet said. This would include building reenforced “safe zones” in homes and putting plastic meshing around adobe buildings, which are particularly vulnerable due to their heavy and fragile nature.
Finally, officials need to prepare for the aftermath. Lima’s hospitals will be overwhelmed, and water and food supplies could be cut off for days if landslides block the mountain rivers and roads to the capital. Meanwhile, Lima’s firefighters, though brave and committed, are an underfunded, voluntary service. And the armed forces, which are largely based in the city and will be essential in dealing with the aftermath of a major quake, “will also be among those impacted by an event of such magnitude,” former Peruvian Defense Minister Nuria Esparch warned.
The earthquake in Lima is just one of several natural disasters that Peru is failing to prepare for. Climate change has already threatened the country, including by sparking drought in the Andes that has killed livestock, above all among subsistence farmers. Then there is the looming threat of El Niño, the periodic weather pattern that often brings unusually heavy precipitation to the Peruvian coast. These rains can turn the steep, bone-dry gullies that run from the Andes to the Pacific into raging torrents in minutes—sweeping away the poor migrant communities that have squatted on the barren land in known landslide paths. These encampments violate zoning restrictions, which in Peru are rarely enforced.
The Peruvian state’s failures to prepare for these risks are not just the result of rampant political corruption at the top, but also widespread dysfunction in local government. For instance, climatologists have warned for months that El Niño is due to appear again in force later this year. Yet as of the end of August, municipalities had spent just five per cent of the around $1 billion allocated by the central government to ready themselves, leaving the rest to idle in public coffers.
At a recent event on earthquake preparedness held by CISMID for the mayors of Lima’s 43 districts, just one mayor showed up. That disinterest is, at least in part, due to corruption, said Zavala, who actually disagrees with the worst mortality projections for a major quake in Peru, believing a likely top number may be around 15,000 dead—most of which would be avoidable, he said. “What happens? The decisionmaker puts his brother or cousin in as director of disaster management, who knows nothing about the issue,” Zavala said. “This is a grave problem in Peru.”
To be sure, Lima’s unforgiving geography makes it inherently one of the world’s most vulnerable cities to earthquakes. Much of it is built on sandy, soft ground that amplifies seismic waves. And the steep Andean foothills, where many of the city’s poorest residents have settled, pose additional risks, including landslides and falling boulders. Yet without dramatic political reform in Peru, many of the deaths that occur when the proverbial big one hits Lima will be human-made rather than “natural.”