Disaster ‘hasn’t ended’
LIMA The number of people killed in Peru following intense rains and mudslides wreaking havoc across the Andean nation climbed to 67 yesterday, with thousands more displaced from destroyed homes and others waiting on rooftops for rescue.
Across the country, overflowing rivers caused by El Nino rains have damaged 115,000 homes, collapsed 117 bridges and paralysed countless roadways.
‘‘We are confronting a serious climatic problem,’’ President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a statement broadcast live to the nation yesterday. ‘‘There hasn’t been an incident of this strength along the coast of Peru since 1998.’’
The highly unusual rains follow a series of storms that have struck especially hard along Peru’s northern coast, with voracious floodwaters inundating hospitals and cemeteries, and leaving some small villages entirely isolated. The National Police rescued eight people who had been trapped for three days in Cachipampa.
In the highlands along the department of La Libertad, dramatic video showed crashing water inundating several buses and trucks, killing at least five people. Rescuers are searching for survivors.
Even in Peru’s capital, Lima, where a desert climate seldom leads to rain, police had to help hundreds of residents in an outlying neighbourhood cross a flooded road by sending them one by one along a rope through choppy waters.
The muddy current tore a channel down the street after a major river overflowed. Some residents left their homes with just a single plastic bag carrying their belongings.
In total, more than 65,000 people in nearby Huachipa were unable to either go to work or return to their properties.
‘‘There’s no way to cross,’’ said Henry Obando, who was rescued after leaving the factory where he works and making his way towards a rooftop where police officers had set up a zipline to enable people to cross. ‘‘Many people are trying to get to their homes.’’
The storms are being caused by a warming of the surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, and are expected to continue for another two weeks.
Kuczynski declared Peru’s Central Highway in a state of emergency yesterday, and announced that he would be boosting funds for reconstruction.
‘‘This hasn’t ended,’’ he warned. ‘‘And it will continue for some time more.’’
In 1998, another El Nino event brought heavy rainfall to the nation’s coast, causing landslides, ripping apart homes and leaving hundreds dead.
Yesterday, the drinking water supply was cut off throughout most of Lima, resulting in a spike REUTERS in the price of bottled water and creating long lines at city tanks.
United States Embassy helicopters typically used to eradicate coca crops in the Amazon have been redirected to help in rescue efforts.
‘‘People are desperate,’’ said Doris Meza, who lives in one of the Lima districts most heavily inundated by the floods. ‘‘Water is entering everyone’s homes. There aren’t cars, and drivers are charging whatever they want.’’ AP