Three more bodies, those of a mother and her two sons, were recovered yesterday Friday by rescue crews, bringing to seven the official death toll of victims of the landslide in northern Peru on Tuesday that buried several homes, according to local authorities.
Search operations continue as at least one person remains missing, according to the same source. On Tuesday, tons of rocks and dirt buried seven houses built on a hill in the isolated town of Rethamas (population 5,000), at an altitude of 2,800 meters, in the La Libertad region, 500 kilometers north of Lima, a 16-hour drive from Trujillo, the regional capital.
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who visited the region, deplored the poverty that drives citizens to build houses in areas at high risk of natural disasters.
This location was indeed "classified as a high-risk zone," said Miguel Yamasaki, a senior Civil Protection official in charge of prevention.
Landslides are common in the southern hemisphere summer in the Peruvian part of the Andes due to seasonal rains. In 2009, at least 13 people, including a child, died in Rethamas due to landslides.
In mid-February, in Brazil, more than 200 people died in Petropolis, a mountainous tourist destination near Rio, when flash floods and landslides occurred, destroying in particular dozens of houses built on the hillside.
Source: CNA
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