ABSTRACT
In a country where the word disaster has become synonymous with the state of the economy and of society in general it might seem perverse and irrelevant to focus our attention on a small earthquake in a remote part of the jungle. The Alto Mayo region, like most of the Peruvian Amazon, has been systematically ignored in the official version of Peru's history and has little or no prominence in the country's political and economic life. If it wasn't for the spread of coca plantations, the actions of armed groups and the impact of the earthquake of 29 May 1990, it is improbable that the Alto Mayo would figure prominently in the national imagination at all.
