Peruvians pull more bodies from quake rubble

PISCO, Peru, Aug 18 (Reuters) Survivors of a devastating earthquake in Peru fought over scant supplies of food and water TOday as rescue teams continued to pull bodies from the rubble three days after the quake killed more than 500 people.

A series of aftershocks rattled nerves in the hardest hit coastal areas south of the capital Lima, where desperate residents looted emergency supply vehicles and stores for food and clothing.

''The supply trucks go by and the anguish of watching them pass without giving us anything forces us to stop them and take what we need,'' said Reyna Macedo, a 60-year-old mother of seven who lost her home in Wednesday's magnitude 8.0 quake.

Earthquake victims complained that food and water supplies have been slow in reaching them and accuse local stores of raising prices to cash in on the shortages.

Police and troops patrolled areas worst affected by the quake -- the towns of Pisco, Ica and Chincha -- and President Alan Garcia warned that looters would be punished.

More police and soldiers were ordered into the towns today.

More than 33,000 families lost their homes in the quake and about 1,000 people were injured. Many of the victims perished after their flimsy mud-brick homes caved in.

The birth of a baby boy in an emergency tent brought some hope in Pisco, a colonial town best known for a grape liquor that bears its name.

''This is a message of life and the resilience of the human spirit,'' Garcia said as he visited the newborn.

Wednesday's quake was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the South American country in the last century, cracking major highways and toppling electricity poles.

In 1970, an earthquake killed an estimated 50,000 people in avalanches of ice and mud that buried the town of Yungay.

REUTERS RL PM2030