Tonnes of foreign aid has arrived in the capital Lima, but a damaged highway and what critics say is poor organization have prevented supplies from reaching victims in towns along the Pacific coast.

A dozen shelters have been opened in the hardest hit city of Pisco, 155 miles (250 km) south of Lima, where nearly all of the mud-brick homes were destroyed, but residents in surrounding towns are desperate.

"No help has gotten to where I live," Justina Huaman said as thousands of cold and hungry people thronged the main square of Chincha, which sits between Lima and Pisco.

Aid groups said Peru's government should have been better prepared. Towns did not have basic equipment like back-up generators to keep hospitals open, phones working and water flowing.

"Something went wrong in terms of preparedness," said Richard Hartill, South America program director for the aid group Save the Children.

Many survivors fled the area in buses and pick-up trucks over the weekend but tens of thousands of people still in the area are completely reliant on government aid.

In Pisco, people were reluctant to go to shelters and instead wanted help to arrive so they could start rebuilding their ruined homes.

"The logistics are bad," Juan Baraona, 52, said in front of mounds of bricks that once formed the walls of his home. "We've been sitting here for days. There are no banks, no money."

Garcia arrived in the disaster zone hours after the quake and has spent days there trying to sort out the confusion. He said on Monday he would create a special agency to lead the clean up and rebuilding effort.

Still, Peru's leading newspaper, El Comercio, said the slow arrival of aid showed "the government is unprepared to react promptly in an emergency."

A poll by the newspaper showed 72 percent of people approve of Garcia's personal handling of the crisis, but 92 percent said Peru was unprepared for a major quake.

Had the quake struck closer to Lima, where more than 7 million people live, damage would likely have been much worse.