A strong but deep earthquake shook a sparsely populated northern jungle region on Wednesday near Brazil's border. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
The quake had a magnitude of 7.0 and was centered 50 miles north of the jungle city of Pucallpa, said Peru's Geophysical Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey.
The temblor shook office buildings in Peru's capital, Lima, about 370 miles away, witnesses said.
In Pucallpa, buildings shook, trees swayed, and people headed out into the street. The agencies said the quake struck at 12:46 p.m. local time (1:46 p.m. EDT) and was centered 90 miles underground. The deeper the quake, the less it is likely to cause damage.
Local media said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in central parts of the Andean nation.
Pucallpa is a regional capital and commercial center of about 200,000 population in a sparsely populated region in central-eastern Peru close to the Brazilian border.
An unidentified local woman interviewed by Peru's Canal N television station said the earth shook "like a hammock."
A Pucallpa police official, Angela Romero, said there were no indications of damage from "a great rattling."
"We all went out calmly to the street," she said.
A police spokesman in the Brazilian town of Cruzeiro do Sul, about 135 miles northeast of Pucallpa, said the quake hit hard and buildings trembled. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to comment publicly.
A Peru Institute of Geophysics but said that because of its depth, the quake only felt like a 5-magnitude to Pucallpa's residents. The official was not allowed to be identified by name.
Peru is among the world's most seismically active countries.
Its most recent deadly quake occurred on Aug. 15, 2007. The 7.9-magnitude temblor killed 596 people and largely destroyed the coastal city of Pisco just south of Lima.
